January 2021 Mod Event: GONE... to the 80s!

[modormenace]

WHO: Anyone!
WHERE: Everywhere!
WHEN: January 10 - 31, 2021/1986
WHAT: GONE... to the 80s!
WARNINGS: The dire consequences of time travel...

GONE...   
 to the 80s!

On January 10th, a door opens.

Not a metaphorical door. You open a door — whether it's out of your home, into your bedroom, out of the bathroom, into a Denny's — and find yourself in another place entirely. You know that feeling when you enter a room and forget what you were going to do? Now you're entering a room and it's the world that's forgotten you.

You're somewhere else. Somewhen else. And it looks an awful lot like... 1986?

The more time you spend in the past, the more the past starts to… notice. You see, history doesn't like being changed. The more it's interfered with, the more it fights back. The longer you hang around, the bigger the moves you make, you'll find the past resisting you harder and harder. You'll find yourself getting clumsier, or attracting police attention, or getting hit by a car. So whatever it is you're trying to do back there, you'd better get it done soon. You might not last the week.

CAPE CANAVERAL

The military base that imPorts are familiar with does indeed exist in this world, but it's a high-security classified area along the lines of Area 51 and no one has any concrete information on any secrets hidden inside. Launches of rockets carrying unidentified payloads light the skies on a semi-regular basis, and with reports of the new Russian space station being assembled in low earth orbit, most locals assume the base is sending up military satellites as part of a nuclear defense strategy. Conspiracy theorists suggest a number of wildly implausible theories. Maybe scientists at NASA discovered something dangerous on the Moon back in 1972 and that’s why we haven’t gone back?

HEROPA

There's not exactly a town in this location, only an unincorporated hamlet of Volusia County known as Heron Park. A gas station and a watering hole called Big Jim's are the only businesses that sit on what will eventually become Main Street. The rest of Heron Park is just a few scattered houses that have seen better days and a whole lot of swampland.

NONAH

Experiencing a population boom over the past few years, Nonah has been a bedroom community for workers commuting to Raleigh since the 1970s but it's now coming into its own as a city. A brand new mall called Valley Court just opened and it's the coolest place to hang out, since downtown won't be seeing its glamorous gentrified revival for another thirty years.

DE CHIMA

The tech industry hasn't made its way to De Chima yet, although the University's computer science department is starting to show some promise. The healthcare and pharma industries have an established presence, but the city hasn't attracted any big names. No, what brings people to De Chima in 1986 is the All-American Roller Derby: a 10-day event featuring brutal 12-hour endurance races accompanied by ongoing laser shows and a pudding pie festival.

MAURTIA FALLS

Of all the cities, Maurtia Falls is the most cosmopolitan in 1986. The local factories haven't closed yet and manufacturing jobs are plenty. As a result, the economy is going strong and businesses haven't turned to organized crime to stay afloat. In sharp contrast to 2021, the streets are clean, the storefronts are gleaming, and the nightlife is downright wholesome. Anyone who's out late is probably on their way home from a dinner theater performance, since the city ordinance mandates that all bars close at nine o'clock.

JEOPARDY

There's nothing where Jeopardy ought to be, really, except a ghost town that looks like it was established sometime in the late 1890s and abandoned before the Great Depression. A rotting saloon is the only building left standing, and even that looks like it might collapse any minute... which could be a problem for anyone hoping to return safely to 2021. There are very few recognisable doorways for anyone to walk through in all this waste and ruin. Most have long since been reduced to a heap of dried wood half-buried under dust.

1986 ⇌ 2021

Is the network still accessible?

Characters in 2021 can use the network the way they always do (unless it goes offline due to a change in the past, which will be noted below). Characters in 1986 will not be able to access the network or indeed use any kind of Internet, as it hasn't evolved past ARPANET/NSFNET at this point in history.

Is this real-world 1986?

For sensitivity reasons, we avoid using specific historical persons/events, but the broad strokes are similar to the real world.

Culturally, it's a hybrid of our 1980s and MoM's signature retrofuture vibe. For inspiration, check out some of the 50s nostalgia of the era, like American Graffiti, Little Shop of Horrors, and (of course) Back to the Future. Fashion leans on the rockabilly side, along the lines of the B-52s. Surfer rock is huge, but that doesn't mean you won't find new wave or hair metal on the charts. Atomic-era anxiety is pervasive and there's a general sense of partying at the end of the world, a hollow consumerism because there's no tomorrow. This is a world that could really use its superheroes.

Do events match recorded history?

All in-universe records are internally consistent. Events in 1986 are reflected in reports of them in 2021. However, these records may not reflect history as a character remembers reading about it previously.

What about the Porter?

There are no records of a "Porter" as of January 10th, 1986— though of course it is a little harder to look for this information without the Internet!

Can imPorts meet up in 1986?

Yes! The world in 1986 is as shared a setting as the world in 2021.

THE DOORS

What is a door?

From January 10th onwards, any door a character opens may lead them into 1986. This does not apply to every door. There doesn’t seem to be any way to predict which doors when opened will become a passage to the past or any guarantee that the same door can be used again.

How do characters travel through time?

Doors to 1986 are essentially tied to the imPort that first opened them and are only active time portals when that imPort is nearby. To use one, walk through! It isn’t possible to see the past through the doorways: a character must step through completely before they will arrive in 1986. In order to return to 2021, step through a door backwards.

Do the doors allow travel through space?

Doors primarily transport characters through time, though there may be a little drift in spatial coordinates, too. This is largely to allow players to have their characters stumble on each other in 1986 even if they didn't enter the past through the same door, and to allow travel to locations that aren't identical in 2021 or 1986.

Can multiple people use the same door?

Yes! Though doors are only active in the presence of the imPort who originally opened them, they will allow a group of any size to travel through. ImPorts travelling with companions don't necessarily have to take the same group with them every time.

Can NPCs travel through these doors?

No. ImPorts are the only ones who can use them to step into the past. They're otherwise entirely normal doors.

What happens if a door is destroyed?

Destroying a door from either side will sever the connection, leaving the character stranded in 1986. They will have to be rescued by characters traveling to 1986 via another door, and may attract attention to their plight by altering the future with their actions in the past (like carving an SOS message into a tree).

What can a character learn about a door?

Doors are entirely unremarkable until they are used. Investigation (via tech, magic, any relevant powers) of an active door may yield results that can be used to detect others in active use. Investigating a door also has an effect on its stability: the closer a character examines a door, the more stable its connection through time becomes. As long as a door is a usable threshold (meaning a character can pass through it), the time portal will remain functional. Any parts removed from it will be normal pieces of wood/metal/etc.