The Worst Timeline / Story guide
The plan
The plan for The Worst Timeline: who's in it, where it happens, and how the story is meant to go. Nothing's written yet, so all of this will change as it gets written. Anything past the setup is folded under a spoiler.
Characters
The narrator
The uncle's heir; the one who goes back
Determined and resourceful, the narrator grew up in a world shaped by what went wrong around 2000. In 2023 their dying uncle confesses that he broke history, and hands them the means to fix it.
Spoilers
Haunted by the uncle's failure and his dying words, the narrator takes the journals and the machine back to 1997 to undo the mistakes behind the collapse. The mission turns them from determined but uncertain into someone who understands the gray areas of changing history. They succeed, and come home to a present so different they can't say whether it's better or just different.
The uncle
The first time traveler
The narrator's uncle is dying of cancer, and he has a confession: he discovered time travel, tried to fix history, and made it worse. He says everyone has been living in the worst timeline ever since.
Spoilers
His attempts, probably well meant, are what created the broken timeline. He passes on his journals, which record the points where history diverged and perhaps his own failed attempts, along with the machine, and asks the narrator to finish the job by going back to 1997.
The antagonist
The one who wants the timeline left broken
Not everyone wants the timeline fixed. Someone has done very well out of the worst timeline.
Spoilers
A shadowy figure who has thrived since the divergence and works to preserve it, always a step ahead of the narrator, with resources in the past and a feel for how the timeline works. The notes want motives more complex than greed: they may believe the broken world is secretly better, or be holding off something worse only they know about. Stopping them before 2000, the point of no return, is the heart of the climax.
Places
1997 to 2000
Where most of the story takes place
The narrator arrives in 1997, into a world of the early internet and the first cell phones, and has to fit in without changing too much too soon.
Spoilers
The plan is to get the era right: the tech and its limits, the culture and the mood, with the narrator's knowledge of the future sometimes an advantage and sometimes a frustration. The story races toward 2000, the deadline after which the worst timeline can't be undone.
Things
The uncle's journals
The map of what went wrong
The uncle's notebooks, left to the narrator along with the machine.
Spoilers
They record the historical divergence points, and possibly the uncle's own failed attempts. The narrator studies them to mark the key events between 1997 and 2000 that need changing.
The machine
The uncle's time-travel apparatus
The uncle's time-travel apparatus, left to the narrator with the journals, and the only way back to 1997.
Spoilers
The narrator has to learn how it works and what its limits are before making the trip.
The worst timeline
The broken present
The uncle's name for the reality everyone lives in now: a world that split from its intended path around 2000 and has been declining since, with more instability and more crises.
Spoilers
The fix is to go back to 1997, three years before the divergence, and correct the key moments before 2000 locks it in for good.
Groups
The allies
People in 1997 who help
People the narrator meets in the late 1990s who want a better future too.
Spoilers
Some of them don't know their own influence over what comes next; some come to understand the stakes. They help the narrator grasp what the divergence means and lend the support the final push needs.
The past versions
Younger selves of people the narrator knows
In 1997 the narrator can run into younger versions of people from their own present.
Spoilers
Seeing them shows how small events snowball into huge change, and gives the narrator both chances and risks in trying to shift events.
Story beats
Show the planned beatsSpoilers for the whole plan
Act One: Discovery
- The confession
In 2023 the narrator's dying uncle confesses that he discovered time travel, tried to fix history and made it worse, and asks the narrator to put it right.
- The decision
After weighing the danger against the state of their broken world, the narrator decides to honor the dying wish and go back to 1997.
- Preparation
The narrator studies the journals and the history of 1997 to 2000, marks the key events and learns the machine and its limits.
Act Two: Intervention
- Arrival in 1997
The narrator arrives, adjusts to the late nineties and makes the first careful changes, trying not to create new problems.
- Opposition
The changes ripple, and the antagonist, who wants the timeline left broken, starts working against them.
- Alliances
The narrator finds allies in 1997 who help them understand what the divergence means and lend crucial support.
- Unintended consequences
Some interventions go wrong, and the narrator has to balance personal struggles against the mission.
- The antagonist's plan
The antagonist's full plan and reach come to light, along with the deadline: they have to be stopped before 2000.
Act Three: Resolution
- The showdown
At a pivotal moment near the divergence, the narrator tries to change a key event while fighting the antagonist; one wrong move locks in the worst timeline forever.
- The sacrifice
A significant sacrifice is made to see the correction through.
- Home to a different present
The narrator returns to find small changes have cascaded into a reality they don't recognize.
- Better, or just different?
Reflecting on the journey and what it cost, the narrator faces the new world without knowing whether it's truly better.