With the Garden of Forking Paths storyline coming to a close, the fates of the Travelers are being written. Ultimately, those who made their way to the Prime timeline and survived are presented with a variety of choices and challenges in their lives.
If you have a character who came to the Prime timeline from an alternate timeline, or were present at the Sunspot Observatory, please carefully read this entire post.
Landing at Sunspot
To the Travelers who landed at the Sunspot Observatory, the next two weeks of your lives will primarily be spent indoors. For your safety and the safety of the world at large, you will be taken by SESA to a secure facility located on the outskirts of Kansas City Missouri by aircraft. Here, you will each be given private accommodations and be permitted to see and speak to one another. You will be treated for your injuries in a state of the art medical facility, given meals, clothing, and any other necessities but you will not be permitted to speak to the outside world save for individuals who were present at Sunspot.
During these four weeks, Travelers will be screened for medical conditions, infectious diseases, and the like. You will be administered non-negotiable DNA tests and meet with SESA psychologists and social workers who will interview you about your lives and experiences and determine if you are a danger to yourself or others. Unless you try and John Wick the place, they're going to just feel really fucking bad for you and try to help.
At the end of the four weeks (February 2nd), you will be personally met by Alice Shaw, the Public Relations director of SESA and chair of the Deveaux Society. Alice will lay out what comes next and how you will integrate into society. After which time you will be permitted to leave the facility, provided you sign and agree to the terms and conditions of your release. (See The Conspiracy and A Traveler's Life, below).
Landing Elsewhere
Some Travelers didn't land in SESA's lap. For those of you who wound up somewhere else you are free to do as you please in this strange new world, but you arrive with the clothes on your back. If you want to live "off the grid" as an interdimensional traveler, that is entirely possible and could lead to plenty of fun opportunities as SESA tries to sniff you out. Alternatively, if you'd like to eventually get registered and legitimate you are welcome to find a SESA office and get that process started, which will ultimately raise some red flags and lead you to the section about The Conspiracy below.
The Conspiracy
No one can ever know what happened at Sunspot.
SESA is taking a hard line against transparency. The existence of multiple parallel worlds and people coming to this world from them is an existential nightmare than could spark a global arms race to develop interdimensional technology. For the sake of the country and national security, the events at Sunspot will be treated with the highest level of classification the US government can levy on information. All Travelers and active participants in their release must sign binding waivers indicating they will not speak of these events publicly or share this classified information with anyone that does not have appropriate clearance.
Those who are unwilling to sign the waiver will be detained indefinitely at the Liberty Island Detention Center until such a time as they comply with the federal mandate.
In exchange for silence, the United States Government is willing to leverage its considerable resources and influence to build a new life for all of the Travelers as per the bullet points items below.
- You are not your alternate: SESA will not permit a traveler to take the identity of their Prime-timeline selves. They were separate people with separate lives and SESA will not hold you accountable for their actions, nor will they permit you to take their lives as your own. If SESA discovers any traveler attempting to pose as their alternate self to deceive or defraud a 3rd party they will ensure it doesn't happen again.
- A New Life: SESA will grant each Traveler not originally native to this timeline a one-time monetary compensation of $300,000 USD ($100,000 in today's currency, remember ST's massive post-war inflation.) This can be put down on residences or other essentials. SESA will help you place for housing and also work with you to build job opportunities.
- A New You: SESA requests all travelers live under an assumed identity and minimize their contact with people who had interactions with their alternate selves. At your option you may create a new afchar: page for this identity, or you may simply keep your old page and add this identity in the ALIAS line. SESA will work with government agencies to build a believable history for your new identities based on your experiences and skills, doing their best to match education accreditation and the like.
What If I'm Caught in a Lie?
If you encounter someone who knew your Prime-timeline self, you're encouraged to use a fantastical but believable lie. Choose from: you were the victim of a biological manipulator who could change faces, you were the victim of an SLC-Expressive cloning ability used by the Institute. SESA will create records backing up your cover story.
More details to come. If you have questions, don't hesitate to ask here!