[updated October 16, 2006]
It's always bothered me that Palladium never gave a date for the After the Bomb setting, not that it should really matter, but it would help to figure the tech level to the world before the human society fell (aka The Crash, The Death, The Big Death, The Bomb, The Flash, etc..), and how much time has passed for decay and rebirth to change the environments of the new Earth.
However, if you know where to look, you should be able to come up with dates to use. The most obvious being the year of The Death.
NOTE: I was able to track down a comment from Erick Wujcik (circa June 2004) [link] on Palladium's AtB Message Board that -quote- 'just sort of vaguely point into the future, and say, "it's up to the Game Master..."'. So what I write here are my own personal theories based on observations from the material that is presented in the books.
The oldest concrete date I've found in the new 2nd Edition After the Bomb (AtB2) manual is found under the Mechanic Apprenticeship in referencing a "2057 fuel-cell/electric communter bus."***
I should also note that Mutants in Orbit (MiO) makes mention that the "Orbit is crowded, filled with the debris of a hundred years of exploration and dumping", which also suggests that space exploration ended roughly 100 years after it began (Sputnik 1957) which suggests the year at the time of MiO was around 2057. However, MiO was written by James "Mutants in Avalon" Wallis and Kevin Siembieda, not Erick Wujcik.
So, I presume The Death to have taken place at some time in or around the year 2060.
Now to determine roughly how long after The Death it is, let's look at the ages of a few characters who know to have lived through that event...
Weschek the Wise: Age 84
Emperor Christian: Age 96
Doctor Wilbur Vincent: Age 136!
Let's use the youngest of these three, Weschek at 84 years of age and who is said to remember vividly the slavery he suffered under the humans. By that we can surmise that Weschek had to be more than a pony at the time of The Death, so let's set his age between 6 and 12-years-old, placing the AtB setting 72 to 78 years later or by todays standard, between 2132 and 2138 AD.
This would set Christian at between 24 to 30-years-old, and Doctor Wilbur between 64 and 70-years-old at the time of The Death.
For the sake of argument let's go with the year 2135 AD, 75 years after The Death.
In 1989, in the Trasdimentional Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TDTMNT) sourcebook, you can find the date 2113 AD associated with the After the Bomb setting, but that could take place at anytime after The Death and should not neccessarily be taken as the benchmark date for AtB2.
But it doesn't end there!
AtB Book 5: Mutants in Avalon (MiA) notes that it is set "around 150 years" after the disaster (pg 4). However, this book was written by James Wallis, not Erick Wujcik, so he may have decided to set his sourcebook further along in the AtB history (nothing says all the sourcebooks have to take place in the same year or decade). So if we go by my calculations above, Mutants in Avalon would take place in, or around, 2200 AD, or roughly 75 years after the setting of AtB2.
Now you can see why I went with the year 2135 AD for AtB2. It places the main book and MiA at 75 year incriments after The Death. Very neat and tidy.
So, if you choose, here are the years that I would suggest for AtB2:
- ~2060: The Death
- ~2135: Current AtB2 setting
- 2200: Mutants in Avalon*
- 2260: Mutants in Orbit or All the remaining nations of the Earth evacuate into space (See TDTMNT, pg 80)**
* NOTE: The description of Europe in AtB2 (pg 166) could be seen to contradict the 75 year difference between the two books, but it could also be seen as history repeating itself.
** NOTE: Optional. TDTMNT is not technically an offical sourcebook to AtB2, although the AtB setting is a part of TDTMNT, and both are the work of Erick Wujcik, the AtB in TDTMNT could be seen as an alternate AtB universe.
***NOTE: In an earlier version of this article I had posted that the earliest date was found under the Random Scavenger Table: "Bomb Shelter or Survivalist Hoard" (AtB2, pg 191) as 2050. However, since finding the date 2057 in the mechanic apprenticeship, I have had to adjust my dates for The Death and the the current AtB2 setting.
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5 comments:
There's a date for the AtB setting given in the Trandimensional TMNT book. I don't have my book in front of me at the moment, but I'll post it once I get the chance to look it up. Nice site.
oops, I should have read you're whole article before posting. I see that you're aware of the Transdimensional date but don't want to accept it as the time for the base AtB setting.
Well, the reason is that TD-TMNT was written before the 2nd Edition book which changed a lot of the background of the setting. Now I look at the settings described in TD-TMNT as alternate dimension AtB settings. Besides, I'd like to think that there is a bright future for the setting and not the dark future set out in TD-TMNT.
Well, I looked around in the books to see if I could come up with anything you missed regarding the timeline for AtB. Here's what I found:
1. Based on AtB1 (I don't have AtB2) you're estimate of the current (game setting) year is too far into the future. "The time is the late twenty-first century. The place is America." (AtB1 p.6) Anything after 2100 would be the 22nd Century. The word "late" isn't very precise, but it can safely be taken to mean the latter half of the 21st century, and with a little more speculation sometime between 2075 and 2100 AD.
2. The Empire of Humanity is described has having a general technology level of the 1980's but also possesing "early twenty-first century technology" in AtB1.
3. In your listing of "Pre-Death" survivors in the AtB world, you missed the most famous ones, well most famous back in the pre-death days anyway...the TMNT. While not mentioned by name, it's pretty clear that Raphael is the sensei in the Road Hogs comic strip. AtB1 hints at the survival of the other three turtles as well. I take "The Gang of Four" described on page 14 of AtB1, a mysterious group of ninjas who rule the swamps of Gatorland, to be a not too subtle reference to the turtles. My guess- the TMNT aka Gang of Four set up their home in Gatorland following the destruction of New York and started training other mutants in the ways of ninjitsu. At some point Raphael decides to head west (probably to be his own boss- very in character) and founds his own ninja school/community in or near New Americorp. Given the long life spans of normal turtles, not to say anthing of mutant ones :), this doesn't really shed any light on the dates involved but it is pretty interesting. It also links the AtB and TMNT universes as being one and the same.
4. One possible clue to the origins of the Death itself is given in the Palladium book TMNT Adventures. On page 7 "in other words, if your campaign needs and excuse to start using the material from After the Bomb this could be it!" This is in reference to the "Doomsday Bears" adventure where the Terror Bears seize a nuclear missle complex.
None of these items offers a definitive date for After the Bomb but the "late twenty-first century" quote narrows it down pretty close. I don't know how much of the story changed from AtB1 to AtB2 or if one is supposed to be set earlier/later than the other though.
Great website by the way.
The first thing we have to do is toss out any TMNT references, as Palladium no longer holds that license and any reference to them has been removed from the Second Edition book (some may argue that the "Gang of Four" is a reference to them, but this is only speculation).
While the time references you mentioned are correct for the first edition books, they have been revised for the second edition to (IMHO) make room for other scientific advances to take place leading up to the Big Death.
The origin of the Big Death and the anthropomorphic changes that followed have been pretty much explained in the new book as well, so the Doomsday Bears tie to the second edition AtB has been cut.
Now, it must be said that the new book does refer players to the first edition books for more information on those settings, but I would only use it for the basics (NPC's, Towns, Personalities, etc...) and not the more detailed background information that contradicts the current book.
If you were to move players from the original AtB to the current AtB, I would recommend using a rift, a trans-dimensional device, or some other hook that would explain the discrepancies.
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