Out in the sand hills and
canyons of western Nebraska you will find the isolated headquarters of
Munroe Concepts Unlimited (MCU), a small but spunky private research center whose motto
is: “Developing tomorrow’s
technology today.”
Two years ago MCU’s
particle physicists were blissfully experimenting with muon interactions in hydrogen as
part of their hydrogen fusion research, when the supersymmetry they were studying suddenly
developed a spin of its own and…BAM, a path into the past opened.
Pretty cool,
huh?
Like any good
physicist, these researchers verified that the unexpected effect could be replicated under
clinical conditions. It could. Unlike most physicists, however, these researchers
did not begin writing a paper for peer review and book first-class seats for Stockholm to collect their Noble Prize.
That is
because MCU’s founder and CEO, LYLE MUNROE, is a different sort of cat, as are the
researchers who work for him. Munroe
recognized he could exploit this unprecedented discovery for fame and glory, but he also
recognized its potential for discovery and adventure, and swiftly chose column B over A.
MCU spent the
next year and a half implementing the groundwork for a plan Munroe dubbed the
“O’Brien Project,” named after “Time Warp” composer Richard
O’Brien (“It’s just a jump to the left”). Its mission statement: “Use time travel to explore the past.” Its tripartite objective:
Affirm/correct
history
Expand present
knowledge of history
Discover the answers
to some of history’s strangest mysteries
As soon as
this groundwork was completed, MCU began a surreptitious worldwide recruitment effort to
enlist the best and most tightlipped candidates to work in the project’s three
divisions of operation:
Fieldwork
Extraction
Support
Munroe, who
will administrate the project, trusted his human resources department to undertake most of
this tricky headhunting; however, when it came to recruiting the supervisors for the three
divisions, Munroe elected to handle that chore himself.
“The
folks I got in mind are old acquaintances,” he tells HR Director Virginia Bruce. “They’re the best at what they do. If they sign on, the O’Brien Project will be a
go.”
A Good Cast is
Worth Introducing
Sign on these
acquaintances do, joining the main characters of ON THE WATCH:
LYLE MUNROE,
founder and CEO of MCU: Retired USAF pilot and
astronaut and former MIT professor (physics). A
gruff-looking Texan with patient, gentlemanly ways (unless you cross him), Munroe loves
adventure and discovery. Intelligent,
dependable, and independent.
MARY ALICE
McMASTER, Supervisor/Fieldwork & Support: Munroe’s
star pupil at MIT and one of the youngest women ever to become a professor at Cambridge University. Born
and raised in England, McMaster is a beautiful woman with PhDs in
history and electrical engineering. She has
also been in love with Munroe since her graduate school days, but he was too professional
to take advantage of her feelings. Brilliant,
quick-witted, and competent.
ROBERT AMSLER
(a.k.a. “Bobby A”), Supervisor/Extraction: Colonel,
USN, retired, and former BUD/S commander at the Naval Special Warfare Center. Served
in the Gulf War, Bosnia, and several clandestine conflicts. Known as “Bobby A” by his closest
friends, a list that includes Munroe, the men going back to their undergraduate days at
the University of Texas. Tough,
adaptable, and uncompromising.
STEWART
BENTON, Assistant Supervisor/Extraction: Captain,
USN, retired. Bobby A’s best student at
BUD/S. Reassigned to desk duty at the Pentagon
after being wounded in Bosnia. Benton missed being a SEAL and jumped at the chance
to get back in the saddle at MCU. Harbors
private romantic feelings for McMaster. Amiable,
observant, and loyal.
DR. JONATHAN
GIBBS, Assistant Supervisor/Fieldwork & Support: Munroe’s favorite professor as a
graduate student at Texas Institute. Born and
raised in New England, served at the Naval Air Experimental Station
in Philadelphia during World War II. Is in charge of F&S whenever McMaster must go
into the field (which occurs whenever she can find an excuse). Grandfatherly, piquant, and intuitive.
PAUL FRENCH,
Fieldworker: The O’Brien Project’s
best temporal anthropologist after McMaster. Fluent
in 26 languages. A handsome, athletic
scoundrel in his early 30s, French would probably be hosting some wilderness program for
the Animal Planet cable network if he wasn’t working for MCU. Resourceful, adventurous, and impatient.
PAMELA ZOLINE,
Costumes & Props/Support: Closest thing to
a “Q” at MCU. Oversees creation (or
recreation) of fieldworkers’ clothing and equipment.
A genius at incorporating and camouflaging contemporary technology (e.g.,
radios, tracers, weapons) into period costumes and props.
Dedicated, imaginative, and proud.
It’s
Not Just a Job
Working on the
O’Brien Project requires more than job titles such as “temporal
anthropologist” or “relic recreator” might suggest.
FIELDWORKERS,
for instance, must be experts in the language, culture, and history of whatever locale and
era they are assigned. They must be able to
blend in so they can acquire firsthand knowledge. Fieldworkers
must also be in excellent physical condition. Life
as recently as 75 years ago was much harsher than most westerners are accustomed to today,
and that harshness increases geometrically the further back in time you travel. Being hale and hearty is therefore a necessity for
fieldworkers, as is being able to survive under extreme conditions for weeks, months, even
years. Ditto being skilled at self-defense. Raiders and highwaymen are not going to give
someone a free pass just because he happens to be a visitor to their historic period.
EXTRACTION
personnel, unlike fieldworkers, do not need to be scholars, since the job of these men is
to rescue fieldworkers who do not contact MCU at designated times or who send a distress
signal. What Extraction personnel must be are
meateaters who can hold up under the rigors of being on 24/7 standby. They must also be ninjas as well as warriors, able
to get in and get out of problem situations with a maximum of success and a minimum of
fuss.
SUPPORT,
meanwhile, may just employ the most varied compilation of experts outside of the CIA or an
old Hollywood studio.
Support manages the outfitting of fieldworkers, maintains contact with
fieldworkers via radio communication, and “traffic controls” all temporal travel
between past and present. Support also
categorizes, files, and studies data sent to MCU by the fieldworkers. The largest of the O’Brien Project’s
three divisions, Support’s personnel includes but is not limited to scientists, ITs
and programmers, historians, ethnologists, librarians, costumers, craftsmen, and clerical
workers.
“It’s
a colorful bunch that feeds off of a challenge,” Munroe confides to McMaster and
Amsler while recruiting his old acquaintances. “And
the O’Brien Project presents this bunch with the biggest challenge anyone anywhere
will ever offer them.”
Style
of Stories
Imagine if Clive
Cussler and Tom Clancy were writing time-travel stories instead of techno-thrillers. That will give you a good idea of the type of
stories that will appear in ON THE WATCH. This
series is about the adventure of time travel. Of
trekking back to the past to not only witness but be a part of the Mongol invasion of
Europe, the signing of Magna Carta, the American Revolution, or the Alamo.
ON THE WATCH can and
should be educational and speculative. Imagine
having the opportunity to establish if “William Shakespeare” was really Mr.
William Shakespeare of Avon or the 16th Earl of Oxford. Or uncovering the real identity of Jack the Ripper. Or finding out who sat as the model for the MONA
LISA. But, let’s face it, stuff happens,
even to time travelers. And it is this stuff
that will provide the fuel for this series’ stories.
One moment you might be surveying life in an ancient Hebrew tribe, the next
you are under attack by Philistines. Or you
might finagle a job in the Heavenly Court of the Emperor of China, only to stumble across
a plot to poison your new boss. What do you
do? Especially in situations like these where
history has no record of how events (and your potential fate) will play out.
Structure of
Stories
ON THE WATCH will
borrow the successful Marvel Comics “soap opera” structure, wherein a main story
is emphasized each issue while one or more subplots are introduced or developed. In due course these subplots will become main
stories. This structure will prevent ON THE
WATCH from becoming episodic, like a 1960s TV program.
Time travel is the
crux of ON THE WATCH, so the series’ main characters as well as most supporting
characters will eventually get in on the act of visiting the past. However, events at MCU are crucial to this series
as well. The suspense of trying to keep time
travel a secret from the outside world will be a continuing plot point of ON THE WATCH, as
will the difficulties of running a complex operation like the O’Brien Project. (Yes, administration can be fun…so long as
intrigue and romance are involved.)
Odds and
Ends
If the fieldworkers
discover that something we in the present believed happened in the past DIDN’T
happen—say Alexander the Great didn’t die from a wussie mosquito bite, or Abe
Lincoln told a lie now and again, or Julius Caesar accidentally tripped on Brutus’
sword—no one at MCU will cry like a bunch of girly-men, but accept it for the truth
because THEY SAW IT HAPPEN, AND THEY WANT TO LEARN THE TRUTH.
One of the
interesting things about time travel is that it does not require a great amount of energy. The fact is time travel actually creates energy,
although the physicists at MCU are hanged if they know how.
Yet.
As already stated,
Time is elastic in ON THE WATCH. No matter how
many guys go back and kill grandpa or marry grandma, the present always defaults to how it
existed before. However, there are certain
rules that fieldworkers must follow, just like any other group of anthropologists. The biggest rule is not to get involved with anyone
in the past. “No touchy.” No romance, nookie, social work, or politicking. (Right. Like
that rule will never be broken. Puh-leaze!)
No history is
perfect. This means, among other things, that
modern historians can decipher lost languages, but until a fieldworker actually goes back
in time and hears one of these languages in actual everyday use, we can never be sure of
its precise syntax and dialogue. An analogy
could be what happens when an American with four years of college Spanish (very formal)
tries to talk to someone born and raised in Cuba (very colloquial). This will be more of an inconvenience than a
problem, however. After all, it isn’t
like a person from the past is going to listen to a fieldworker’s grammatical errors
and deduce, “This dude is from the future!”
TEASER: The employees of MCU are not the only time
travelers out there. There are others,
possibly from our future, maybe not even from our planet, who do not seem to appreciate
what Munroe is doing.
Back to ON THE WATCH
