Cultures and Aliens

Aliens of all shapes and colour exist, including on Earth – in some parts of the Universe, they’re just pretty well hidden, including on Earth. Strangely, most aliens tend to look and feel human, or nearly so. It is theorised that these Aliens have actually been created by Time Travellers, but who is to know for sure?

The Morpheus Contagion

The Morpheus Contagion is a semi-sentient disease that affects both machines and human beings. Infected humans fall into a deep sleep, while machines progressively become aware and capable of movement and initiative.

This would not be such a problem if infected, humans and machines alike didn't enter a dream state and became effectively unable to perceive reality. And it wouldn't be quite that bad if their dreams didn't end up having on effect on reality around them.

Time Dispatch --- Urgent --- Time Dispatch --- Urgent --- Time Dispatch --- Urgent --- Time Dispatch

"This is a call to all Agents in the Time·Space vicinity. The year is 1901 and the Eiffel Tower is dancing, I repeat, the Eiffel Tower is dancing. This is not a code, the Eiffel Tower is dancing. Oh, now, it seems to be starting to... yes, the Eiffel Tower is stripping its clothes, apparently, it intends to dance naked in the streets. I repeat, the Eiffel Tower is preparing to dance naked in the streets of Paris 1901.

Please, Agents, it's growing too big for a single Crew, we need reinforcements!"

The Chroniclers of the Snafu

The Chroniclers of the Snafu are a cult apparently omnipresent in Time and Space that seems both non-violent and dedicated to chronicle the actions of Bureaucrats.

While they do not seem to employ Time Travel themselves, their chronicles have a tendency to be synchronised between epochs.

Time Chronicle

"I remember, the first time I heard the name of 'Robin Hode', I was but a child. The Monk entered my parent's house, and he asked whether he had heard an archer called this Robin Hode. My parents had heard of no such man, they answered, so the Monk smiled and bade his goodbye. I heard that name again when I was twelve, maybe thirteen. It was an old woman, with a mule and parchment, and even a book, and she asked whether Robin Hode had arrived, but there was no such person as Robin Hode, so she left, muttering nonsense as old women do. Three times, they came, asking for this Robin Hode, as I grew up, and married, and built my own house for my family. And yesterday, a Nun came, walking alone on the road, and asked whether Robin Hode had arrived. 'Yes, I answered, my name is Little John, and after all these years, I can lead you to him.' And she answered 'Little John, you say?', and she chuckled. 'Why do you laugh, ma'm?', asked I. 'Well, if you must know, because I was sure that Little John was a bear.' And she added 'But don't worry, we'll get this fixed.'"

(translated extracts of the Memories of Nottingham – the sole surviving copy of this book is currently held by the British Library's Special Operations Division)

The 0.001%

They 0.001% are a ramshackle group of refugees that claim to come from before the Great Snafu (or, depending on translation, to have been mis-fixed from the Great Snafu). They have been spotted all across the Continuum, attempting to gather supporters, resources, materials, and laundering it all through Time and Space, for objectives unknown.

The Most Benevolent Administrators

The Most Benevolent Administrators are believed to be leftovers of a dead branch of the Bureaucracy. While they look quite harmless – who would fear something that appears essentially to be photocopier on wheel tracks – the sheets of paper that they sometimes print make them very dangerous.

Most Benevolent Administrators are generally Poets and Philosophers, able of deep reflections on the nature of the human psyche, among others. They are also extremely perceptive and their writings are eloquent as very few human beings can be. Surprisingly, they often use these skills, combined, for the perceived benefits of others. Wherever a Most Benevolent Administrator shows up – which may be pretty much anywhere in Space·Time – expect that within a few months, people will be inventing Social Security and Universities and Parliaments, building Cathedrals, Towers of Babel and Starships and Utopias. Sadly, very few civilizations can survive such a level of ascension, and the rule of a Most Benevolent Administrator most often ends with bloody revolutions, invasions, cataclysms or self-immolation.

Most Benevolent Administrators are rather peaceful, and will not incite a civilization to war when it could be using its own life essence to produce immortal pieces of art. The only known exception is when two Most Benevolent Administrators show up in the same Space·Time – this always ends up in a savage war to the last man breathing, for obscure philosophical or religious reasons.

Most Benevolent Administrators are not known to reproduce or travel in Space·Time themselves, although it has been theorized that some sufficiently advanced civilizations inspired by Most Benevolent Administrators may be seeding fresh Most Benevolent Administrators across time and space.

The Brick Nation

The Brick Nation come in all sizes, from the toy-sized Minifigs and the even smaller Microfigs to the titanic Overfigs. Most of them may easily be recognized from their round, yellow heads and lack of fingers, but Brick Overlords have been known to maskerade as other species. They are a semi-mimetic artificial life-form apparently bent on taking over the Universe. Their mode of operation is generally peaceful: join a culture, then progressively replace its technology by brick-tech, then its main characters, and finally an entire city – or sometimes an entire world.

Do not under estimate their smiling faces and open hands. Also, who is to say that they have not taken over one of the versions of the Bureaucracy yet?

Time Dispatch --- Classified --- Time Dispatch --- Classified

"Captain report, Space·Time coordinates... er, not sure, but we're plenty far from Earth Central and Delta Time is strongly negative.

So, last time we approached this civilization, they seemed to be locked in a very aggressive space war, with large battleships happily pounding each other, and they had apparently recently reached the technological level to destroy entire planets with some of their larger battlestations. Needless to say, we decided to leave them one or two generations and to return once they had picked a winner.

So, on that side, well, not much of a success. The war is still raging, with pretty much the same kind of battleships and battlestations. Actually, that's a bit weirder. Apparently, the very same people seem to be raging that very same war, including some that we were pretty sure had died. For instance, there's this weird man with a breathing mask called (Hey, ensign, what's the name of that guy in black? The asthmatic one with a glowing stick. No, not that one, I think that's his his grandson, I want the old one. No, not the weird one with a face like granite and two glowing sticks. Ah, never mind!), well, I can't find his name, but anyway, we're pretty sure that he had been killed after betraying his chief, and here he is, again, cape and mask glowing stick and all. Also, they still have planet-destruction technology, they're still trigger-happy, and there's still no way we're going to go close to them.

My recommendation is that we cordon off their galaxy with a sanitation field, to make sure that their do not export their bloody war to our stars. Also, maybe it's me being prejudiced, but all the humans in this galaxy have a very yellow skin, so maybe there's a case of consanguinity that might explain why there can't be star peace around here? We should investigate who first settled this galaxy.

Well, that's all for that Space·Time. So, on we go, for another season of our discovery mission. Our next stop is a place called, er, Magic Britain, where last time, they were preparing for civil war. With any luck, they'll be more reasonable."

The Time Hierarchy

It is clear that the Time Hierarchy is somehow related to the Time Bureaucracy. Just as most branches of the Time Bureaucracy, the Time Hierarchy has a few agents that travel freely all over the Continuum, appearing and vanishing as they see fit, and somehow seem to be present around pretty much every critical juncture of history, past, present and future.

What is less clear is, well, pretty much everything else. Nobody seems to know from which time or place the Time Hierarchy originates or operates from, or what its agenda is. Its agents have been known to survive impossible wounds and diseases, as well as to outsmart highly-decorated Bureaucrats, which led to many conjectures, from a Post-Human origin to anthropomorphic robots or other kinds of artificial constructs. Agents of the Hierarchy seem to care much less about Observable Contradictions than any of the known branches of the Time Bureaucracy, which might be explained either by a more advanced Time Travel technology that would allow them to leave Pocket Continuums more easily or by the assumption that the Time Hierarchy will show up to cleanup after them.

Just as importantly, its agents are know to be arrogant pricks. Oh, and the lack of data on the Time Hierarchy has led most branches of the Time Bureaucracy to assume that agents of the Hierarchy have somehow managed to either infiltrate their ranks or break into their vaults, databanks and archives to erase any concrete information on the Hierarchy.

It is, of course, possible, that the Time Hierarchy is only a rumor. Or has been. Or will be.

Time Report

"So, I was at the precinct, like every other day, and this huge guy shows up, I mean, built like a bodybuilding bear on steroids, with sunglasses – it was night, right? – and he was dressed like a biker. He was holding a box of flowers, but when I caught sight of him, I knew he was bad news. I got up from my desk as he was walking towards the duty officer, he was maybe three or four steps away, I motioned my partner and we moved to intercept.

But before I have the time to get within distance, that steroid bear drops the box of flowers and draws some kind of pump gun, and he points it at the duty officer, and he calls, with a very loud, very German voice, 'Where is Sarah Connor?' and the duty officer looks up and he's frozen and he can't answer, so the Steroid Biker Bear shoots him in the chest, and we open fire.

After this, it's... it's... I don't really remember what happened. It's pure chaos. I remember shooting, getting shot a few times and being surprised that I'm still alive, and looking at my blood, and realizing that it was green, and that I had been shot by a paintball gun, and that we were shooting real bullets at a crazy guy with a paintball gun. So I got up and tried to yell everyone to stop, but the Steroid Biker Bear was still standing, happily painting all the officers around, and most of them were down, and he shot me again, more than once.

The last thing he said was 'I'll be back', and he had a very, very odd expression that still haunts me every night. I think he was trying to smile."

Extract from a tape on the Precinct X incident. Place and time of incident could not be identified. No other report seem to have survived. No witnesses found. May have happened in a Pocket Continuum. Steroid Biker Bear still at large.

...and more

The Universe is a large place, with plenty of space for more Cultures and Aliens. Do you wish to add Daleks or Skynet, Doctor Doom or Ether-propelled ships, Time-Turners or the Court of Auberon? Sure, put them over there. But you can just as well come up with new, more exotic things of your own.

And, of course don't hesitate to use the Time Deck to improvise entire new civilizations, that's what it's here for!