The Brand New Paranoia Timeline: Look, sooner or later you're going to have to admit to yourself that the Paranoia timeline is really out of whack thanks to the elements of the Vulture Warriors of Dimension X! series, the fact that we still haven't had a World War III, and the fact the Communist system doesn't look like it will be around much longer. Hey don't get worried my fellow sadistic Paranoia GMs there is help! See, I rethought the who Paranoia timeline in order to fit the Alpha Complex future so it does not have to rely on anything as annoying as reality. What follows is the overall explanation followed by the how this works into the Vulture Warriors of Dimension X! series. Just ignore the dates of the original timeline explanation and the fact that Juno existed prior to The Age of Peace and this explanation should cover just about everything. Period of Nostalgia: The story of The Computer, Alpha Complex, and that big planetoid about the size of Sheboygan, begins in the quaint little town of Nowheresville, Nevada (okay so I don't know where our story actually begins but that's besides the point). Anyway, in Nowhereville there was this small archaic television/radio station completely run by your average over-obsessive obese loser who hadn't seen a ray of sunlight since the Carter administration (no I'm talking about a different one, remember this is the future), and well as it turns out this plucky.. er.. lucky chap was at least semi-conscious when a rebroadcast of World War II-to-Cold War Period transmissions flooded his consoles (with a 'Return to Sender' tag from a bunch of rather annoyed aliens). Well to make a long story short (I know 'Too Late') the dweeb recorded every little bit of the junk, rebroadcast it to an eager public who lapped it up like voracious killer (but ever so cute) puppies, and the guy became a Mega-Media-Mogul ever since. World War III (The Communist Uprisings): As a direct result of the recycled media (proof positive that sometimes recycling goes too far) the public started demanding for items like Hoovers, VW Bugs, Folding Chairs, and other odd trinkets, all of which had been out of production for hundreds of years (and for good reason). But of course when there's a demand, sooner or later somebody's going to try and fill it (no matter how stupid the demand is), and thus the business of Replica Merchandise became a booming industry. Of course the manpower to create these useless trinkets needed to come from somewhere, and since there weren't any third world countries left to provide cheap labor (yes, Wal-Mart is no longer in business. See? The future is looking brighter already!), big business looked for a cheap alternative. Enter the creation of enhanced humans and mutant animals, entered into a program of encouraged facilitated labor (I.E. slaves). This 'brilliant' alternative to paid labor wasn't exactly well received by the working public or abject believers in that whole individualistic freedoms deal. Anyway to make a long story short (well shorter that it otherwise would be), somebody organized these muties into a Neo-Communist party that shook the foundations of the world and brought forth a new age of peace (or at least something along those lines). The Period of the Big Joke: Soon after World War III a new World Charter was signed that set-up a working system of Marxism based on some Communist principles (Insert Age of Peace here, or a close substitute). After which everybody got a good chuckle from all those old Commie jokes that have been in the pipeline since who knows when. Of course, this wasn't enough for the public's tastes, and soon *NEW* jokes and media entertainment popped up to fulfill the population's demands. The most notable of which was an AI Computer program loaded up with 1950's civil defense information in order to function as a amusing computer game/interface (Insert Evil Grin Here). The Junonian Project: At about the same time as the Period of the Big joke, a bunch of beer swilling no-nothing rednecks found power in the new governmental system and started a campaign to send dem darn muties back where they came from. Of course in the time it took the genetic scientists to explain to these morons that the mutants had come from test tubes and thus couldn't be 'sent back', public sentiment sided with the dimwits. Thus, the scientists were faced with the prospect of doing something with the tants that was creative and humane (well creative at any rate). So, one of them got the bright idea to ship the lot of freakish beings off to the new artificial planet of Juno. However, by the time Earth had finished sending a majority of Australia's mutant animal population to Juno, the people had gotten the bill and quickly learned to live in harmony with their oozing comrades (this is a Commie system after all, isn't it?). The Beginning of the End: Years later Juno blows up into lots and lots and lots and lots of very tiny pieces, and one very big piece (about the size of Sheboygan) that acts like it has a mind of its own (well because it does). In fact, it goes into cloak in order to outwit Earth's early warning devices, and doesn't come out until it is somewhere in the vicinity of Saturn. The approaching Armageddon encourages the more skittish/intelligent to jump ship in every available deep space transport, leaving the vast majority of the populace to contemplate their doom. Some don't appreciate just sitting around and waiting to die (gee, I wonder why) and proceed to make vast underground warrens that hopefully will survive the planetoid's impact (and at least give Bob Villa's decedents something to do with their final few days). Unfortunately, because most of Earth's egg-heads zipped for greener planets (or at least greener that Earth will be when that big old rock hits) the few programers left were forced to shamble together a working AI program to run these underground complexes, from the AI program from The Period of the Big Joke. The big ol' rock hits, the Computers go insane and become extremely paranoid and then we slip-slide into the world of Alpha Complex. Vulture Warriors of Dimension X!: Alice Through the Mirrorshades: Wouldn't you panic if you knew the world was about to end? Or maybe you'd loot a few buildings and try to accumulate some wealth for yourself, ignoring the precedents of the peaceful Marxist system that was in place. Well guess what? That's EXACTLY what's going on in AttM! That's my story and I'm sticking to it! Twilightcycle 2000: Ahem. World War III, anyone? What's there to explain? We've got mutants and commies for Dr. Mendelson to be unrationally/rationally afraid of. And the Commies breaking into the lab at the end of the adventure is enough to drive the already unstable Alpha 9000 to the brink. As for the loonies in TWC: 2000? Well who says the Alpha 9000 wasn't being made near the local Insane Asylum Ney Zest Pah (or something like that)? Dr. Whom and the Paranoids of Alpha: Well Juno's AI is also based on the Alpha 9000 game (hey haven't you ever heard of budget cuts), but unlike the ones used in the underground warrens that would later pop up on Earth, Juno's Ordinator was slightly more stable. However, this would not matter much when in an experiment to create the perfect cheese cracker, head scientists Dave Ross would meddle with powers beyond his ken and bring forth the mighty demon beast Phil from an alternate reality. Phil, then proceeded to pervert the Ordinator to its will by using its underlaying paranoid personality disorders and driving Dave Ross insane with a few selected folk songs. The rest of the adventure should pretty much gel with this explanation, except for the last Episode. Well here's my explanation, the Troubleshooters *ALWAYS* succeed in disposing of Phil and they always return to an alternate form or Alpha Complex (ala that Sliders show). See, when Dr. Whom *fixes* the TDC, he reactivates its capacity to traverse dimensions as well as time. Hey, if you can come up with a better explanation I'm all ears! Why the First Ones haven't come Back: Oh, we're terribly sorry about leaving the rest of humanity to die and all that, but if you forgive us we promise never ever to do it again. I.E. they're too embarrassed to come back and probably never will (unless Clem can convince them otherwise).