3.07 Calibration Redux

Status

::FINAL-READY::

Location

See 3.00 Registration Redux

GC Point of Contact

Erik & Melissa

Location Notes

Over the Internet (we'll store the video on Youtube or somesuch). Likely out of the lab. (Erik's note: any Internet-based can also be implemented via some app, similar to what Ghost Patrol did.)

Type

Mandatory Puzzle

Plot Setup

• Players have just fixed Prof. Chronus's time machine and are returning to Peach Frontier Laboratories to see her re-materialize.
• But upon returning to the lab they found it is once again Trenchwood Institute and they realized they are right back at the beginning of the Act I timeline
• The Doctor's time machine demonstration has once again gone awry.
• The visitors have instantly solved three key technical problems for fixing the time machine: unscrambling the core dump, designing a new co-keypad #34, and hacking the password to the supercomputer
• The Doctor realized the players are in an infinite time loop...which reminded him of strange poem in his high school yearbook...which he didn't understand at the time...but the players decoded to reveal instructions on how to break the loop.

Props

Each lab assistant doing this event should have

• laptop computer
• disk with Trenchwood version of Computer Remote Access Program
• 16 or 17 copies of "So you're going to be a time traveler..."
• 32 or 34 copies of Mission Dossier

Plot Point to Convey

Same as Act I, Doctor When must be located so he can be rescued. But also this time, that the machine was fixed before Doctor When lost his envelope. He still has it.

Short Description

Shorter version of Act I, with new solution.

Open Time Period

Sunday, approximately 9:48 AM - 10:23 AM

Staff Instructions

Your Role: Lab Assistant at Trenchwood Institute.

What To Wear: lab coat + Trenchwood Institute name badge

What Your Character Knows: Everything in Plot Setup except the stuff about Peach Frontier Laboratories.

Puzzles At This Site: This document just covers Calibration Redux

Where To Get Materials: GC HQ + your own laptop computer

Setup Instructions: n/a

Handout Instructions: This is a very complex series of activities you need to guide our (sleep-deprived) players through. For each team you will:

1. During the process of calibration help them discover that the Doctor has not bounced around in time as long as the last time
2. Watch The Doctor--Watch the video of Doctor When in 1986
3. Guide the players to realizing that this time the envelope is not in 2012 and that they will have to go into the past themselves.
4. Introduce them into the functioning of the return time wormhole archway
5. Introduce them to the four main steps steps of their mission
6. Send them to mission training

The interactions should go something like this (but feel free to improvise):

VISITOR: Who would have guessed--there's a hidden message! It says, "Woe! You're trapped in endless loops unable to unite them forever in final bliss. To transform their future lives journey back in time and modify the writing on the newspaper. Words not used will help show what to do." The "words not used" say "Substitute right with its reflection."

LAB ASSISTANT: Well, then we had better repair the time machine ASAP! Using your design for co-keypad #34 we almost have the time machine working. But now we need to recalibrate it before we can use it to carry out those instructions. The Temporal View-O-Scope has recorded flashes of the different times and places Doctor When has randomly bounced to. If you can predict the next time he'll materialize in, we can use that to set everything right. You don't by any chance know that, too?

VISITOR: Last time it was at the Big Bang.

Lab assistant fiddles with the machine.

LAB ASSISTANT: Darn it, that didn't work. Maybe we've already altered the timeline. Let's look at the View-O-Scope log.

The visitors review the Temporal View-O-Scope footage again on a lab computer using access code 100030. It is exactly the same as in Act I, but ends after only a few vignettes. (Most importantly, it ends before Doctor When loses his envelope.) Based on their memory and/or notes of the longer film from Act I, the visitors know that the next place the Doctor will be is France right before the revolution.

VISITOR: Good thing we double checked. Actually the next place he'll be is France right before the revolution.

LAB ASSISTANT: I'm recalibrating using that. It works!

I've opened a portal taking him to the destination coordinates he programmed into the time machine before he left. Let's just lock the View-O-Scope onto him and see what he's up to.

Enter code 100031 into your copy of the View-O-Scope Computer Remote Access Program and watch the Doctor in 1986.

LAB ASSISTANT: That's odd...I thought he'd come right back to 2012.... Now what was that you were saying about changing a newspaper?

VISITOR: The yearbook pieces told us to change the writing on the newspaper.

LAB ASSISTANT: What newspaper?

VISITOR: That envelope that Doctor When had contained a newspaper with a message on it.

LAB ASSISTANT: But we just saw Doctor When put the envelope in the locker! That newspaper is in 1986.

VISITOR: This is a problem. In the last timeline, we found the envelope here in 2012 and sent it back to him. But this time we fixed the machine so quickly he didn't bounce around in time long enough to lose the envelope.

LAB ASSISTANT: Then I suppose we'll have to go back to 1986 and change the writing there. But wait...none of the lab assistants or even Prof. Chronos can go back...we're the only ones who know how to operate the time machine. Who could possibly undertake this task?

VISITOR: Uh...we could go back....

LAB ASSISTANT: What?! That plan is crazy...so crazy it just might work!

OK, so you've never time traveled before. Don't worry. This should be easy. No pressure. But the structural integrity of the universe does depend on you.

All you have to do is step into the chamber, wait till it opens a time wormhole, and then walk through into 1986! After you exit the wormhole just walk over to the high school, find the locker, remove the envelope, change the writing on the newspaper according to the instructions from the yearbook pieces, put the envelope back in the locker...and try not to disturb anything else in the timeline unless you have to.

By the way, it's quite a coincidence that your mission takes you to Paine Memorial High School. Our instruments have detected that there's some sort of chronotonic nexus where many different timelines intersect quite near the lockers at the gym. I have absolutely no idea why that gym is so important. But it does mean that it is an excellent location to project the return time portal archway. So that's where you go after you put the envelope back in the locker. You'll be able to see it, but the people in 1986 won't.

Once you get to the archway, if it glows green, that means head on through. If it's red, then it's not quite ready.

Oh, and I probably shouldn't even bother to mention this, but if it flashes red, that means there's some sort of temporal anomaly that you'll have to fix. But that's very unlikely to happen.

Oh, and just to be safe be sure to bring anything you might need with you! In particular, anything from 1986 that might prove useful...

VISITOR: Like a cassette tape? Or a Choose Your Own Adventure Book?

LAB ASSISTANT: Sure! Oh, and I suppose those yearbook pieces are from 1986, too. Better bring those just in case. You do know where the high school is, right?

One more warning about traveling back in time -- no communication devices that haven't been invented yet! If you have a smart phone, set it to "airplane mode" so it isn't searching for non-existent cell signals. It's okay to use it as a camera or calculator or MP3 player, just no communication!

If the players suggest bringing something very bulky or heavy, like a boom box, improvise some reason why that won't be necessary ("that technology will probably be easy to find in 1986")

We want this mission to go perfectly for you. So here's a little pamphlet that a helpful government agency prepared as well as a mission dossier we threw together.

The lab assistant hands them a flyer entitled, "So You're Going To Be A Time Traveler" and two copies of the mission dossier.

And just to be doubly sure, the Doctor envisioned a time when there would be many time travelers. To prepare them, he drafted a training simulation. Head over to the Chrononaut Rapid Acclimation Protocol.

The lab assistant ushers them over to Mission Training a/k/a "Chrononaut Rapid Acclimation Protocol."

Site Close Down: n/a...the site stays open.

Other Instructions:

• Stay in character.
• Except ... if a team says "time out," break character and help them.

Manager

Allen

Hints

n/a

Response to Correct Answer

?