Finger on the Button: A TimeWatch Adventure Seed

Hook: Nuclear war breaks out in the 1960s between a bloated British Empire and the fascist Empire of Japan.

Divergence Point: Button Gwinnett survives his 1777 duel and goes on to undermine the American war effort through paranoia and incompetence. Britain reclaims the colonies by 1779.

Core Clues & Scenes

• (1960s) The Revolution failed. Britain controls North America, India, Australia, many African territories.
• (1960s) The British succeeded in retaking the southern colonies in 1778, starting with Georgia.
• (1960s) Button Gwinnett survived the fatal duel with Lachlan McIntosh on May 16, 1777. He continued his political purge, gutting the military leadership in the South.
• (1960s) The agents are attacked by British commandos while researching Gwinnett and the Rebellion in Savannah. The head commando is actually an ezeru imposter.
• (1960s) Gwinnett's papers reveal his secret fears that his political rivals aren't human, indicating a major ezeru presence in 1770s Georgia.
• (1778) Gwinnett issues an order outlawing the public display of Masonic symbols. Joseph Habersham leads a protest at the Old Savannah Cotton Exchange, home to Solomon's Lodge of the Freemasons. Gwinnett sends in soldiers, but Habersham escapes. Evidence at the scene points to Habersham being an ezeru.
• (1778) The agents uncover an ezeru nest beneath the Cotton Exchange, led by the Habersham-imposter. The shapeshifter reveals he fixed the duel the previous year so Gwinnett would live in hopes he would destabilize Georgia and the other southern states. (Habersham was McIntosh's second.)
• (1778) While the agents deal with Habersham, soldiers raid the Cotton Exchange and arrest everyone. Gwinnett enters and displays anachronistic knowledge and technology. He attempts to infect the agents with Europan worms. The resulting three-way battle threatens to bring down the Cotton Exchange.