The Planet of the Apes game I'm starting up, isn't just borrowing from that mythos, but stealing liberally from other science fiction shows as well. In talking this over with my friend Jim Shelley of
The Flashback Universe Blog, he hit on doing sort of trading cards of major timeline events. Here's my timeline and what Jim did with it. I'm not using everything in the game, but it was a fun
exercise.
An additional note: This is a TV timeline. A lot of dates in Planet of the Apes are given in the movies, so it doesn't so up in this version. The Logan's Run tv show and film offer different starting dates, but the show is being used here (though in my game, should the City of Domes ever show up, I'm using the movie date).
Creation of cyborgs (like the Six Million Dollar Man) may also rank among the late 20th Century's achievements.
Suspended animation was used in spaceflight in the 80s, so either a less developed version was already in use (as suggested by the POTA films) or data from Hunt's project did lead to a breakthrough despite the loss of the team leader.
The actual date is August 19, 1980.
The Great Conflict is the name given this war in
Genesis II/
Planet Earth. These shows make it clear that the war occurred in the 20th Century, though it most have been after a subshuttle station we see in the
Planet Earth pilot was built in 1992. The Planet of the Apes tv show suggests a later date, no never specifies, but this date fits with the POTA film series. The
Logan's Run series sets the apocalyptic war in the 22nd Century, which is why I chose to go with the earlier film dates in my game setup.
This is also true of the 2nd Roddenbery pilot to deal with this material, Planet Earth. There Dylan Hunt is played by John Saxon.
No evolved apes are seen at the time of PAX (or even Logan's Run), true, but it could be the apes were confined to the area that once was California then. Neither of these shows necessarily covered a wide territory.
Astronauts Burke and Virdon arrive in a North America (or at least Western North America) controlled by apes in a well-established civilization in 3085, so the culture must have spread before that.
10 comments:
Very clever adaption of similar themes into a coherent whole.
I might suggest moving the culture of Logan's Run to Europe, where the remnants of a stagnant high tech society barely manage to survive, while the apes rule the Americas. You could even fold Max Max's Australia in at the fringes.
This is great. For clarity, these trading cards are not on Flashback Universe, correct?
I don't know why, but I would add an earlier point to the timeline featuring the 80's TV show the Phoenix.
Some very interesting plot hooks and adventures you will have. Definitely having the Logan's Run culture and how the team will react - especially if any are older!
Like the cards. Very cool.
Coming across an old NASA base - Perhaps too far out would be Space 1999? 😃
Look forward to reading how the campaign goes.
@seaofstarsrpg - That might work, though it would require ditching finding the old man in the ruins of Washington D.C.
@Mark - Those images there are all there are. No actual "cards" exist, sorry.
@Sleet - Well, if the Moon disappeared, that would explain some dialogue in the Planet of the Apes film.
Very cool. I like the idea of a failed PAX. Perhaps the two pilots could be reconciled as two "eras" of the organization.
Also, what else is going into the mix? What of the Saturday Morning show "Ark II"? The timeline is all wrong, but the heroes seem like a PAX antecedent and they even have an uplifted chimp. :)
The Phoenix never seemed very Post Apocalyptic to me -- Ancient Astronauts, yes, but postapoc, no.
How about the bionic Sasquatch and it's parent alien refugee colony from the Six Million Dollar Man?
You might be able to work Buck Rogers into this, too -- wasn't his Ranger spacecraft launched in like 1984?
I think some Bionic Man/Woman stuff will definitely make it in. Buck Rogers is tempting, but his nuclear war is a bit early and his future is yet another "humans are pretty ok with no apes" time to add in between the 90s and the 3000s.
Re: Buck -- I vaguely recall that (at least in 2st season) that there were only one or two enclaves of advanced humans, and the rest of Earth was a radioactive wasteland filled with mutants.
It makes sense to exclude it, particularly with its focus on an apparently healthy interstellar society, but at the same time the Defense Directorate (I think?) also seems like a natural cousin to PAX.
If this is going to be straight up murderhobo hex crawling, it probably doesn't really fit tonaly, unless you treat New Chicago as some kind of City of the Gods or otherwise surviving remnant of the Ancients.
1st season, not 2st. Stupid phone.
It occurs to me that Ark II isn't Prime Time, which disqualifies it.
Ah well. As long as you have Kreegs.
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