In the distant future, the most valued resource is access to the time continuum, the key to time travel. Controlled by a consortium of powerful races, the technology is protected by an elite force of warriors chosen from across time and space, who pilot the most advanced weapons systems in the universe, the Slizers!
This entry is going to be a little different to my typical fare. Much like my previous "Danton" series, in that I've dug out something from my teens (and this time childhood) and am seeing if there's anything there worth keeping. The Slizer story goes back about as far as I can remember, as it is what the overarching narrative of the games I played with my Lego became. Yes, I was one of those kids who had a story to go with certain toys they owned. Because this narrative spanned years of collecting and little games played by myself, it's pretty muddled, but thankfully, I tried to get it all sorted out at some stage in high school and somehow still have that ancient Word document kicking around my hard drive.
It all begins with a group of academics at a university, one of whom, a Postdoctoral Theoretical Physicist, manages to crack the holy grail of Science Fiction, Time Travel. Taking his friends along with him on the maiden flight (an archeologist, a classicist, a geologist and a physiologist), the team go on adventures throughout history and the near future, meeting famous people, getting into trouble and just having a whole Doctor Who meets Sliders vibe. Throughout their journey, something is stalking the team, something alien. Over time, the stress of the situation wears on the friends, with many wanting to go home, events coming to a head when they're attacked by their pursuer and the Physicist reveals he knows more than he's been letting on and attempts to dump all of his friends in the wastes of history.
We follow the archeologist, our protagonist, by the by, as he is stuck for a while in the Old West, think tail end of the American Civil War. For a few years, he hangs out on the edge of society, trying to preserve history and fix his time travel device with the available technology, ala Back to the Future - Part III, and occasionally dealing with something strange. When the local town becomes the target of an alien with powerful weaponry, our protagonist uses his 21st Century knowledge to rally the town and bring the creature down, though reveals his secrets as he does and decides to leave before his goodwill evaporates in the harsh light of day. Thankfully, the alien craft is able to access the timestream, so we're off again.
Any freedom our protagonist enjoys is short-lived, as he is arrested by the Slizer Force, essentially a militarised "Time Police", as a rogue time traveler, revealing that the defeated alien was there to arrest him and that they've been hunting him and his friends since they first started their journey. Offered the choice to be erased or join, our hero signs up, only to find that his surviving friends, excluding the physicist of course, are alive and working for Slizer Force. Within the broader policing structure of future humans and aliens, there is a team of time travel veterans who act with a little more autonomy and attempt to curb rouge elements without lethal force. As well as the Geologist and Archeologist, the team features characters we have encountered before, and a few new ones. But more on that next time, as this is a pretty good breaking point.
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