Campaign Idea

[J. Lionheart]

See the movie Terminator 2. Done!

Well, with a little more seriousness (Though really, it's true! Watch it!) pick up a copy of Transdimensional TMNT for an insight on approaching timetravel in a Palladium context. Developing the alternate reality wouldn't be too difficult, as it would be mostly like a fairly advanced version of our current modern world - perhaps look at N&SS with an emphasis on the superspy side, less on the martial arts.

[Spinachcat]

Sounds good! Grab some Chaos Earth for the NEMA stuff and go to it!

Of course, if they fail, then you have a Chaos Earth campaign...maybe an odd one if they made enemies of NEMA and are clearly non-human.

But what's worse is if they succeed! What becomes of them?

[J. Lionheart]

Where else could I find some pre rifts stuff to use?

Pretty much any book Palladium makes that isn't RIFTS could qualify as pre-RIFTS. PF Obviously is a bit outside what you're looking for, but the worlds of N&SS, HU2, BTS2, and Nightbane all are sufficiently similar that you could use them.

Here's an idea to play with - say perhaps things aren't quite as straightforward as post-RIFTS scholars thought? Say maybe that Argentinian Glitter Boy excursion actually had nothing to do with the rifts erupting, it just shaped the politics associated with what happened afterwards? Perhaps the magical eruption was going to happen anyway, but by stopping the violence, it manifests instead as Dark Day! Suddenly your intrepid group of RIFTS-style adventurers find themselves as man's last best hope for fighting back against the Nightlords? Maybe, because of the BIO-E shifts associated with time travel and dimension hopping, they themselves manifest as Nightbane by surprise, to fight back against the forces of the Shadowlands?

[jedi078]

Other megaverse settings would qualify though? Like very close to before the Rifts happening? I really like the idea of Pre Rifts not being what everyone thought it do be, I'm gonna have to toy with that...

You wanna get Choas Earth.

[Lord Z]

One possible pitfall is the classic plague of time travel sci-fi, the Grandfather Paradox. If the character changes history too much, he will prevent himself from going back in time to change history. There are actually some high-level physicists having conversations like this right now due to recent events at the Hadron Collider. The Trandimensional Turtles system of time travel is great, but Erik didn't really get into the issue of causality much. One solution is to simply have the character rifted into a similar universe's Earth set a few hundred years earlier. Another option is to make significant changes unavoidable like in Terminator 3. Since several of the PB game lines revolve around the concept of a single global catastrophy (After the Bomb 1 & 2, Dead Reign, Nightbane as mentioned above, Chaos Earth as also mentioned), any of these could work as possible scenarios when the event does happen. If you want to stay close to the Rift-version of the global event, then yeah, Chaos Earth would be the most helpful.

[Lord Z]

Very nice, macksting!

[Lord Z]

Here is a nice, informative, and short article about the Anti-Miracle Theory concerning the Collider. Whether we agree with the theory or not, it makes for great sci-fi referencing.

Concerning the other stuff, sorry -- you will have to either buy the books or wing it.