1,000,000 BC

[Laryssa]

These are the encounter tables for one of my prehistoric worlds from "A Subsector of Megayears". Modern humans have not yet evolved, that species being only 200,000 years old. The immediate ancestor of Cro-magnon homo sapiens is here however in the species Homo heidelbergensis. Most of these animals are familiar and their stats can be found in the D&D monster manual, some stats for the prehistoric creatures in Italics can also be found their as well, otherwise you can use the Traveller T20 creature system to create a near analog for that creature in D20 stats. You can try searches on the internet to find out more information on these creatures listed here. My source was the "DK Dinosaur Encyclopedia"

I think this would make a great Traveller setting.

Here are the random Traveller stats as if it were a Traveller Planet

Name ____________________ UWP _____ Grav _ Clim. PBG Stellar Type
Pleistocene Earth (1 MYA) D867444-5 1.00g Chilly 814 G2V

Prehistoric 1 MYA Encounter Tables
Prehistoric creatures are in Italics.
Cold Aquatic
___ 1 ____________ 2 __________ 3
1 _ Medium Shark _ Large Shark __ Orca Whale
Cold Forests
___ 1 _________ 2 _______ 3 ________ 4 ____________ 5 _____________ 6
1 _ Brown Bear _ Rat _____ Wolverine _ Dinofelis _ Dire Wolf _ Neanderthal
2 _ Homo heidelbergensis
Cold Plains
___ 1 _________ 2 ________ 3 ____________ 4 _____________ 5 ______________ 6
1 _ Polar Bear __ Rat ______ Smilodon _ Dire Wolf _ Neanderthal _ Homo heidelbergensis
Temperate Aquatic
___ 1 _________ 2 ________ 3 __________ 4
1 _ Porpose ____ Squid ____ Giant Squid __ Cachalot Whale
Temperate Marshes
___ 1 ______________ 2 _______________ 3 ________ 4
1 _ Tiny Viper Snake _ Small Viper Snake _ Toad _____ Homo heidelbergensis
Temperate Forests
___ 1 _______________ 2 _________ 3 ________________ 4 ______________ 5 _______ 6
1 _ Badger _ Black Bear _ Boar _____________ Hawk __________ Owl _____ Rat
2 _ Raven __ Wolf _____ Megatherium ____Dinofelis__ Dire Wolf
3 _ Neanderthal __ Homo heidelbergensis
Temperate Plains
___ 1 _____________ 2 _______________ 3 ______ 4 ______ 5 ________________ 6
1 _ Bison __________ Light Horse __ Pony __ Rat _____ Megatherium _ Smilodon
2 _ Dire Wolf __ Neanderthal __ Homo heidelbergensis
Temperate Deserts
___ 1 ______ 2 _________ 3 _______ 4
1 _ Bat _____ Donkey ____ Rat _____ Homo heidelbergensis
Temperate Hills
___ 1 _______ 2
1 _ Weasel ___ Homo heidelbergensis
Temperate Mountains
___ 1 ______ 2 ______ 3
1 _ Eagle ___ Rat ____ Homo heidelbergensis
Warm Aquatic
___ 1 __________ 2 _________ 3
1 _ Manta Ray ___ Octopus ___ Baleen Whale
Warm Marshes
___ 1 ________ 2 _______ 3
1 _ Crocodile __ Rat _____ Homo heidelbergensis
Warm Forests
___ 1 _____________ 2 _______ 3 _____________ 4 ____________ 5 _________________________________________ 6
1 _ Ape ___________ Leopard __ Lizard ________ Monitor Lizard _ Monkey ____________________________________ Rat
2 _Constrictor Snake _ Tiger ___ Diprotodon _ Dinofelis _ Dire Wolf _ Australopthecus Afarensis _ Homo heidelbergensis
Warm Plains
___ 1 _____________ 2 ___________ 3 ____________________________ 4 _________________ 5 ________ 6
1 _ Baboon ________ Cheetah ______ Elephant ______________________ Lion ______________ Rat ______ Rhinoceros
2 _ Smilodon __ Dire Wolf _ Australopthecus Afarensis __ Homo ergaster __ Homo heidelbergensis
Warm Deserts
___ 1 ______ 2 ______ 3 ______ 4
1 _ Camel __ Hyena __ Rat _____ Homo heidelbergensis

Diprotodon
Size: Large 10 ft (3 m) long
Diet: Shrubs and bushes
Habitat: Scrubland, open woodland
Where found: Australia
Time: Pleistocene (1.75 – 0.01 MYA)
Related genera: Euwenia, Sternomerus, Nototherium

Megatherium – Giant Ground Sloth
Size: Huge 20 ft (6 m) long
Diet: Leaves and twigs
Habitat: Wooded grasslands
Where found: South America
Time: Pliocene and Pleistocene
Related genera: Pyramiodontherium, Ocnopus, Eremotherium

Dinofelis – Terrible Cat
Size: Medium 7 ft (2.2 m) long
Diet: Deer, antelopes, apes, other mammals
Habitat: Woodlands
Where found: Europe, Asia, Africa, North America
Time: Pliocene and Pleistocene (5.3 – 0.01 MYA)
Related genera: Metailurus, Adelphailurus

Smilodon – Saber-toothed cat
Size: Medium 5-8 ft (1.7 – 2.5 m) long
Diet: Large mammals including horses ground sloths, bison, and camels
Habitat: Grasslands
Where found: North and South America
Time: Pleistocene (1.75 – 0.01 MYA)
Related genera: Megantreon, Paramachairodus

Dire Wolf – Canis dirus
Size: Medium 6 ft. 6 in (2 m) long
Diet: Large mammals, and other animals, carrion, possibly fruit and nuts.
Habitat: Grasslands and woodlands
Where found: North America, and northern South America
Time: Pleistocene (1.75 – 0.01 MYA)
Related Species: Canis lupus – Wolf, Canis etruscus

Australopthecus Afarensis – Early hominid
Size: Small 1 m (3 ft 3 in) tall
Diet: leaves, fruit, tubers, carrion, animals
Habitat: Open woodland, wooded grassland
Where found: Eastern Africa
Time: Pleistocene (1.75 – 0.01 MYA)
Related species: Australopithecus anamensis, Australopithecus africanus, Australopithecus garhi

Homo ergaster
Size: Medium 5 ft. 9 in. (1.8 m) tall
Diet: Tubers, carrion, small animals
Habitat: Tropical grasslands
Where found: Eastern Africa, possibly Republic og Georgia
Time: Early Pleistocene (1.75 MYA)
Related Species: Homo erectus, Homo antecessor

Neanderthal – Homo neanderthalensis
Size: Medium 5 ft 6 in (1.7 m) tall
Diet: Probably fruits, berries, nuts, and large and small animals
Habitat: Open woodland
Where found: Europe, Asia, and Africa
Time: Pleistocene (1.75 – 0.01 MYA)
Related Species: Homo heidelbergensis, homo sapiens, homo antecessor

Homo heidelbergensis
Size: Medium 5 ft 9 in (1.8 m) tall
Diet: Seeds, tubers, nuts, fruit, shellfish, fishes, large and small animals
Habitat: Nearly all land habitats
Where found: Worldwide
Time: Pleistocene (1.75 MYA – 0.1 MYA)
Related Species: Homo neanderthalis, homo antecessor, Homo sapiens

 

[robject]

These would also be awesome encounters to add to a "Bronze Age" compendium...

 

[Border Reiver]

Sweet Tom, nicely put together. Be careful with your research though. Some of these are actually closer to CE than early pleistocene. Dinofelis and Smilodon are from different ends of the pleistocene, Dinofelis as it says, more rightly belonging in the pliocene epoch but gone by 1.2 million years ago (at least from the fossil record, who is to say they didn't carry on?)

Dire Wolf is a lot closer to the holocene, it appeared in the late pleistocene (around 300000 years ago) a was apparantly still on the go 12000 years ago or less. There is an ancestral variant though, Canis ambrustani, close enough and no reason not to call it a dire wolf.

Keep it up, though I did prefer the alternate earth jump to the time travel jump idea. It doesn't seem too outré though and reminds me a little of the Flesh series in 2000ad and Cadillacs & Dinosaurs.

 

[Laryssa]

Well they are alternate Earth's technically, the only thing is their departure point from our timeline occurs when time travellers from the future make their appearance. What the time colonists do from that moment on is what makes the alternate timeline. Besides all the facts are in books and their's no making up to do, you just have to decide on the colonist's actions and how it affect this world's development as a whole. The book I used is pretty broad, it asigns creatures to whole time periods, all this is based on fossil records. We have a rough idea about when such creatures lived, but their endpoints and begining points are fairly vague, and a new fossil find can over turn what we think we know fairly quickly. I think 1 million BC is fairly Early for Neanderthals, they are among the last non-homo sapien homonids to make their appearance. This above is a first stab at it. I skimmed through the book as I a wanted to get this out in a hurry. I think their was an ice age on at 1 million BC, but I'm not sure, the book was pretty vague about it, saying that during the Pleistocene the Earth was generally colder than it was now, but that covers alot of years.

The next world within easy reach is 11 million BC The Miocene

 

[Border Reiver]

Right enough, extensive glaciation is the norm but with large periods where they retreat.

Miocene next? Cool. Giant carniverous flightless birds, a 1500kg predatory mammal, 15m long crocodiles.

But let's concentrate on the present. Let's put together a background for the technology.

Who?
What?
When?
How?
Where?
Why?

Who invented the tech?
What is the tech, derived from jump. Gravitic technology involved?
When was it postulated, when was the first "time" jump?
How do they operate? Are there "time ports" set to receive the ships and send onwards?
Where (or when) do they stop? Big bang?
Why? Resource exploitation or pure science?


And just as a nugget. Since we are looking at alternates. What if they encounter another human society evolving parallel technology. Familiar, historic or completely different. Your choice. (even room for space nazis here

)

 

[Laryssa]

There are two possible campaigns here. One originates from the standard Traveller Universe. The research station on Luna comes up with a variation on the jump drive, a slight alteration that has unexpected results. Namely it turns a jump drive into a time jump drive. Jump 1 can go 1 million years in the past apparently, but not all time periods are available.

I made a little map here. Basically its a subsector map, but its dimensions are 10 hexes by 10 hexes. Each hex downward represents another 1 million years into the past. A hex rightwards represents a journey 10 million years into the past. If a time ship jumps a total of 10 hexes downwards on this map from the home hex in the upper left corner, then the ship will appear at the top of the map, one hex to the right of the home present hex. Yes, in otherwords the timeline spirals.

Experimentation by the first time travellers has shown that the time frames, although the resemble the past, aren't connected to the present or to each other chronologically. Experiments involving alterations of historic first landing sites on the Moon in the past time frames have shown this. The most commonly accepted theory as to why these changes don't carry over to later time frames and the present is the alternate timeline theory, but there is another less accepted theory which might also explain this. This is the "rubber time" theory, since the smallest jump yet possible is that of 1 million years, the timeline has plenty of time to correct itself after all the alterations caused by the time colonists. In theory the "random" action of molecules in the lunar surface can simply just arrange themselves through seemingly random action over a million years so as to erase all traces of the time traveller's presence on the moon so that it looks from the present and other later time frames that the time travellers have never been there. This is the fixed timeline theory, but their is alot unknown about the past so their is plenty of room for free action in a fixed timeline. Neighter theory has been completely proven although the alternate universe theory is considered most likely by the scientists at the Luna Station.

Aside from the OTU campaign the other campaign is a solar system only base roughly in the 2nd decade of the 22nd century, technology has advanced more quickly that in the OTU with the current tech level at 15 with the exception of their being no FTL interstellar travel, instead time travel was developed in its place. Telescopic observations of other nearby star systems has revealed no signifancly Earth-like planets within range, some planets with life apparently, but not capable of supporting humans without mechanical assistance. The effort of living on or terraforming theses planets are considered not worth it when compared to the relative ease of colonizing the different time frames of Earth's past. There are 11 billion human beings in the Solar System with most of them residing on Earth. Interplanetary travel has been made easy with reactionless drives and gravitic technology, but most people prefer to live under Earth's open skies rather than under domes of planets like Mars or the Moon. Fortunately the invention of time travel provides plenty of Earth's to choose from besides the present one.

The time colonies have just gotten started, most are dependent on imports from Present Earth for all the little needs of 22nd century life. The Earth is still balkanized in this setting with many nations and cultures, similar in some respects to Transhuman space politically, but its basically a Traveller setting with grav tech, reactionless drives, spaceships, no downloadable human personalities, but the bare beginnings of some AI technology, although this is the equivalent of a human intelligence of 8 in the most advanced models.

Here is the map of time frames.
_______________30 MY_________________________90 MY
00 MY_____20 MY___________________________________
_____11 MY_________________________71 MY_____91 MY
01 MY___________________________________81 MY_____
_______________32 MY_____52 MY_____72 MY__________
__________22 MY_____42 MY_________________________
_____13 MY_____33 MY_____53 MY_____73 MY_____93 MY
03 MY_______________43 MY_________________________
_________________________54 MY_______________94 MY
04 MY_____24 MY___________________________________
_____15 MY_______________55 MY_____75 MY__________
__________25 MY_____45 MY_____65 MY_____85 MY_____
_______________36 MY_____56 MY_____76 MY__________
06 MY_____26 MY_______________66 MY_____86 MY_____
_______________37 MY_____57 MY_____77 MY__________
__________27 MY_____47 MY_______________87 MY_____
_____18 MY_____38 MY_____58 MY_______________98 MY
__________28 MY_____48 MY_________________________
_____19 MY_______________59 MY_____79 MY__________
09 MY_____29 MY___________________________________

If you were to superimpose the above map on top of a standard traveller subsector map, these below would be the hex numbers.
The following is the UWP data of the earliest time frames colonized, the ones that are closest to the present Earth on the above map. As you can see they are fairly independent of Modern Earth politically, although each one was founded by a single nation on Earth. These are starter colonies.
The 1,000,000 BC colony is an American/Canadian/European colony with a single planetary Representative government, although with a colonist population of only 80,000 people, that's not saying very much. The other homonids are basically very clever animals that walk on two legs, yes some can build fires and make tools, but they are not yet fully evolved into modern homo sapiens. They are in a somewhat troubling position of being somewhere between an animal and a human in intelligence, they can be trained to do manual labor and can be taught to use some modern equipment and tools with much practise and patience, but they are not quite the equal mentally of modern humans.

So what role would a homo erectus play in this society do you think? Slavery is of course against the law, they are not sufficiently animal like to be owned like a horse or a dog, but do they qualify for citizenship. Some people insist that they be paid money for their labor, but the concept of money is somewhat beyond them as the most they can do is build fires and chip stone tools. Any ideas? I'm open to suggestions about this.

Name _________Hex _UWP Grav _Climate PBG Type
Earth (00 MY) 0001 A867A73-F Normal_ 114 G2V
Earth (01 MY) 0002 D867444-5 Normal_ 814 G2V
Earth (03 MY) 0004 B8676AD-4 Normal_ 614 G2V
Earth (04 MY) 0005 D867575-7 Normal_ 914 G2V
Earth (06 MY) 0007 D867575-6 Normal_ 114 G2V
Earth (09 MY) 0010 C867779-6 Normal_ 314 G2V
Earth (11 MY) 0102 A867214-A Normal_ 514 G2V