I linked to this in this RPGnet thread about, yes, Doctor Who Christmas Special ideas. Lots of possibilities (check out the list of events occurring in late December throughout history) and I threw in two of my own.
The Green Knight
Landing in London, Christmas 1540, the travellers detect that someone is using anachronistic technology to affect the weather, making it snow severely as Henry the Eighth holds his winter court, keeping him inside.
Ice Warriors!
"I don't think they're here about the dissolution of the monasteries..."
They overshot a time-travelling attempt to wipe out the 21st Century space program and protect Mars, and are now trying to wreck English efforts to found colonies in the Americas to stop that happening.
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And another one, going the other way:
Following Yonder Star
We open on a group of children under a Christmas tree, being told they can open one present now then it's off to bed. And we pan up and back to their window... and a field of stars streaking past.
The year 2091. A united Earth spaceship, heading for the first terraformed colony on another world. Six months into a twelve-year flight. Christmas among the stars.
And someone wants to stop the mission. Dead.
Chello!
ReplyDeleteThat is something I try to do in games...have holiday themed. Sometimes it works but usually it doesn't (i.e., game calendar is not in synch with the "real" calendar!).
However, with Doctor Who and time travel, that is not an issue. Thanks for the reminder!
You're most welcome.
ReplyDeleteAnd since then, Princess Stacey added the following, ahem, cracker to the RPGnet list of ideas:
There was a thread recently called "Santa Wants You Dead" That would give you a nice plot. On Xmas Eve, strange packages appear in houses all over England. A few of these are opened and they contain weird technology - ray guns and teleport-belts and what have you. After an incident or two our heros will try to gather up all of these strange "toys" - but there are way too many. And soon it will be Xmas morning and people all over england will wake up and open these mysterious presents. It could cause mass chaos!
Well, eventually our heros can trace the presents to their source - a weird starship orbiting the earth, and the mysterious Zanangi, who disrupt "lesser civilizations" with gifts. They consider it the ultimate form of warfare - they never attack (they are too sophisticated for violence) so they give away chaos-causing gifts. Their plan is to clear the "lesser races" out of this lovely part of space for their own expansion.
The Zanangi ship is defended by shapeshifting robots (who have taken the form of Santas, natch) and all our heros have to do is defeat the Zanangi in time to hit the "retrieve" button that will teleport all the presents back to the Zanangi ship. And they have to do it before dawn!
There might be many ways to defeat the Zanangi - but it would be very Xmas to simply teach them the joys of giving good presents instead of being such creeps all the time.