MEMbrane.

MEMbrane - The alt.worlds expeditions.

Imagine Stargate but dimensional.

It is the mid 2020's and the world is in a bad way, with evolving brushfire wars, resources conflicts, world famines and increasing political unrest. Amongst the programs backed by the UN is a research team that claims a practical use for three branches of hi energy physics. Through the creation of a micro event manipulator, a stable window between different possible universes 'branes' are created. Brian Greene heads up the Micro Event Manipulator project that allows the existence of the Membrane - a passage to the world next door. A very secret research project (private, but with heavy oversight from the UN) MEM has hired specialists to aid them in the next stage of their research - sending humans through the membrane.

The set-up. MEMbrane will be run using Unisystem, based on the cinematic version, but including a little more grit. Drama points will exist, but be halved and much harder to replace. It will, however, be a cinematic game. Characters will be larger than life, broadly competent with large, obvious backgrounds and personality traits. There will be two base archetypes - the Hero and the Professional(white hat).

The Hero represents the very competent veteran soldier, the all-rounder with an interesting past, the billionaire scientist patron, the Polymath engineer, the intelligence agent planted in the project, the counterintelligence agent planted in the project, the ex-astronaut explorer, the eccentric genius who designed the MEM, the UN liaison officer, the shady one the Swiss government insists on being present.

Heroes tend to have a past that puts them where they are now. They are highly skilled in many fields and have well defined roles, already established. The expeditions are something their previous lives have already prepared them for, in some way.

The Companion is the regular person who gets caught up in the expeditions in the course of their work or interests. The brilliant field botanist, the 14-year old kid with the high IQ and perfect photographic memory, the UN soldier/field tech, the nosy reporter they couldn't keep away, the selfish rich guy who invest the family fortune so he could travel to another world, the medic with a heart of gold.

Companions tend to have relatively ordinary lives before the expeditions begin - but their path in life is not as well defined as the heroes. The expeditions are a life altering event for companions.

Heroes start with more of everything - except drama points. Heroes have five, companions have ten.

Companions may, at any time, use up 5 pts of their DP to 'power up', as long as this fits the plot of the game and the GM's expectations of fair play. These points are lost permanently and the new DP max becomes 5.

'Powering up' usually involves something unusual happening to the character within the game, allowing access to changes that are rare or unusual. Examples may be

• Showing an immediate talent for a skill or ability never previously encountered. (use the force, luke!)
• Undergoing an event that changes the characters outlook and drive significantly, leading to improved attributes or skills centred around that theme. (They didnt kill me, but they'll wish they had...)
• Developing new skills, abilities or talents that are revealed as a result of gameplay (acquiring a psychic ability, a new language quickly and fluently, learning an obscure martial art or science, having a unique gene or an unusual connection to an NPC, catching a weird gene altering disease, acquiring a symbiotic bond, etc).

Setting

The MEM project is based in an undergound research facility close to Berne, Switzerland. It is publicly known as a secondary research facility for high energy physics and receives UN funding for other, more practical work. It is, however, privately funded.

When a final breakthrough is made, a stable harmonic is created with other branes. All electronics shut down while penetrating the membrane, though communication can be carried out. More robust, primitive electronic tech can survive the passage through the brane, but delicate microchips, etc will not.

Plotlines: Earth, our Earth, is Home. MEM intends to find a means to use membranes to aid Home. First of all, exploration and research needs to be done. This will be the job of the teams assembled to go through the branes to other worlds.

Branes come in 'states' - collections of worlds with similar conditions. Other states still reflect the same physical laws, but may have wildly divergent local conditions. Changes back in the Earth of that brane cluster.

Other possiblities.

Branes with other laws/conditions. Base physics holds across all branes, but some branes tap more easily into n-dimensional energies, allowing things like the three laws of thermodynamics to be broken by sourcing energy external to the system.

Other sentients. Most will be, initially - alt.humans or primates. Other sentiences will be found, deeper into the branes.

Hi tech. some of these sentients will have branetech of their own - which will be useful to MEM. Others - the nomads (generational) move from world to world, drain, move on.

Brane clusters.

• The Empties. A range of Earths where humans seem not to have evolved.
• The Parallels. A range of Earths that reflect our own, though often wildly divergent in history and culture. So far, none of those monitored have technology as advanced as Home.
• The Mids. A range of Earths centred around an Earth with a thinner atmospheric and a reduced axial tilt. The Equator boils, the poles never rise above freezing. The only inhabitable areas are the mid-latitudes.
• The Mirrors. A range of Earths that reflect Home, but with relatively minor detail changes.
• The Alts. Worlds that are an unusual take on our own - generally associated with the basis behind some human myths and legends.
• The Wrecks. Series of worlds that are 'fading', running down into steady-state nothingness.
• The Reaches. Unusual series of worlds hard to maintain contact with. More 'bleed' from the n-dimensions.

Clusters are not exclusive or easy to map.