Steve Jackson Games Forums - View Single Post - The First Interbellum (1918-1939)

Johnny1A.2 · 03-11-2016, 11:59 PM

LATER.

In order to explain what is happening in Harrystown, we must make a brief diversion to Germany, to learn about the events there that triggered an explosion a third of the way around the planet.

In the foothills of the German Alps, in a small town, a secret project had been underway for over a year. It had no connections to the Weimar government, and though a very few officials (mostly mid-ranking ones) had some connections to the organization behind it, the German high officialdom could have truthfully claimed to know nothing about the whole thing.

The project itself was being carried out in a factory complex, under the cover of manufacturing machine tools. This manufacturing operation was quite real, it made an excellent cover for the secret activities. Most of the workers in the factory had no idea of what was going on, the plant manager, the supervisors, and a few other key personnel were in on the project.

We need not go into detail (right now) about the origin and nature of the project, or who was carrying it out. Suffice it to say that it involved work on machinery designed to interact with psionically-active individuals, based on design work from a military project undertaken in the last days of the Great War, just before the collapse of the Hohenzollern monarchy.

There were two relevant things of which none of the scientists, engineers, or other personnel involved in the project were aware, however. One was that, although the German authorities had been kept mostly in ignorance of the entire business, the same was not true of the French intelligence arm.

The French agents did not know exactly what was going on in the factory, and suspected (wrongly) that it was a project backed and carried out by the German state. They did, however, have men watching the area, and had made some unsuccessful attempts to infiltrate the operation site itself.

This, in turn, had brought the whole matter to the attention of the Russians, who had no idea about the project (yet), but were aware that the French were interested in something in an otherwise unremarkable small town in southern Germany, which drew some low-level agents of the Bolshevik state into the area as well, to ascertain in what the French were so interested.

The other factor unknown to the men carrying out the project (and the agents trying to observe them) was the fact that the town chosen for the site lay atop a cluster of significant ley-line nexus-points. None of the individuals involved would even have had any idea that such things existed.

Nevertheless, there were no less than four significant nexus-points within three miles of the site of the factory, and there a major nexus-point, comprising four ley-lines intersecting each other, at the site of the factory itself, actually underlying the complex.

Thus, though the men of the project had no suspicion of this, or even of the existence of such a thing, the Flux pulsed with higher than normal intensity and focus on the very site they had chosen to carry out their work. Invisible, intangible, in detectable to ordinary senses, the background Flux- field was nevertheless very real and very strong in that place.

The psionic work carried out in the factory would normally have been too weak and too minor to interact with the Flux enough to matter. On a clear, sunny morning in September of 1927, however, they activated one of their 'special' machines, designed and built using the knowledge from the earlier military project. This machine was intended to amplify the strength of the three psions linked to it. Instead, it caused their native psionic power, amplified and altered by the crude machine, to interact with the strong Flux field permeating the factory site. It so happened to be a time when that Flux-field was especially active, and the combination sent a 'shock wave' of activity outward along the linking ley-lines, through them through other nexus-points and into other lines, spreading around the world at the velocity of light, like some vast world-wide network of plumbing suddenly subjected to a surge of pressure.

That surge had little visible effect in most places, but when it passed through the ley-line in Harrystown, New York, we have seen what resulted.

MORE LATER.

03-11-2016, 11:59 PM	#206
Johnny1A.2 Join Date: Feb 2007	Re: The First Interbellum (1918-1939) LATER. In order to explain what is happening in Harrystown, we must make a brief diversion to Germany, to learn about the events there that triggered an explosion a third of the way around the planet. In the foothills of the German Alps, in a small town, a secret project had been underway for over a year. It had no connections to the Weimar government, and though a very few officials (mostly mid-ranking ones) had some connections to the organization behind it, the German high officialdom could have truthfully claimed to know nothing about the whole thing. The project itself was being carried out in a factory complex, under the cover of manufacturing machine tools. This manufacturing operation was quite real, it made an excellent cover for the secret activities. Most of the workers in the factory had no idea of what was going on, the plant manager, the supervisors, and a few other key personnel were in on the project. We need not go into detail (right now) about the origin and nature of the project, or who was carrying it out. Suffice it to say that it involved work on machinery designed to interact with psionically-active individuals, based on design work from a military project undertaken in the last days of the Great War, just before the collapse of the Hohenzollern monarchy. There were two relevant things of which none of the scientists, engineers, or other personnel involved in the project were aware, however. One was that, although the German authorities had been kept mostly in ignorance of the entire business, the same was not true of the French intelligence arm. The French agents did not know exactly what was going on in the factory, and suspected (wrongly) that it was a project backed and carried out by the German state. They did, however, have men watching the area, and had made some unsuccessful attempts to infiltrate the operation site itself. This, in turn, had brought the whole matter to the attention of the Russians, who had no idea about the project (yet), but were aware that the French were interested in something in an otherwise unremarkable small town in southern Germany, which drew some low-level agents of the Bolshevik state into the area as well, to ascertain in what the French were so interested. The other factor unknown to the men carrying out the project (and the agents trying to observe them) was the fact that the town chosen for the site lay atop a cluster of significant ley-line nexus-points. None of the individuals involved would even have had any idea that such things existed. Nevertheless, there were no less than four significant nexus-points within three miles of the site of the factory, and there a major nexus-point, comprising four ley-lines intersecting each other, at the site of the factory itself, actually underlying the complex. Thus, though the men of the project had no suspicion of this, or even of the existence of such a thing, the Flux pulsed with higher than normal intensity and focus on the very site they had chosen to carry out their work. Invisible, intangible, in detectable to ordinary senses, the background Flux- field was nevertheless very real and very strong in that place. The psionic work carried out in the factory would normally have been too weak and too minor to interact with the Flux enough to matter. On a clear, sunny morning in September of 1927, however, they activated one of their 'special' machines, designed and built using the knowledge from the earlier military project. This machine was intended to amplify the strength of the three psions linked to it. Instead, it caused their native psionic power, amplified and altered by the crude machine, to interact with the strong Flux field permeating the factory site. It so happened to be a time when that Flux-field was especially active, and the combination sent a 'shock wave' of activity outward along the linking ley-lines, through them through other nexus-points and into other lines, spreading around the world at the velocity of light, like some vast world-wide network of plumbing suddenly subjected to a surge of pressure. That surge had little visible effect in most places, but when it passed through the ley-line in Harrystown, New York, we have seen what resulted. MORE LATER.