CHRONOS is a game about time travel, and a game about people. It's about what you could do if you could change the past. The scale we're looking at is as big as humanity itself: characters won't be working to fix that stupid thing they said in Year 9, they'll be looking at averting (or mitigating, or worsening…) the biggest conflict in human history.

As a game concerned with time travel, one of the major themes of CHRONOS is causality: what got us where we are today, what could we do to change that? How can the actions of one person have an impact on the lives of millions of others? In addition to that, questions are likely to be raised of who has the power to make these decisions, and whether they should be allowed to have this power? Although the exact nature of causality is not known by the characters, actions taken in the past will have an impact on the present (and future!) of the game world.

While this is a science fiction game, the emphasis is not going to be on the science. We've put work into making our explanations for faster-than-light travel and time travel seem plausible, if not actually possible, but this is there to facilitate action rather than draw the focus. Characters will be able to go back in time within a fixed set of boundaries, and while there can talk to people or take action in ways that will influence the world.

It is also worth noting that CHRONOS is not set in the future of this universe, but rather in an entirely different universe. Earth does not exist, nor has it ever existed, and trying to find Earth would not make sense in-character. While there is an original homeworld of the human race somewhere in the universe, it is not a relevant feature of the game, and trying to find it will not yield fruitful results.

The state of the universe in which CHRONOS is set is pretty grim: decades of war have left the Seven Systems a miserable place to live. Mass violence forms the backdrop to the world in which most of the characters will have come of age - and even for the older characters, it's been an integral part of their lives.

Despite that, the game's tone is broadly an optimistic one. While you shouldn't feel the need to minimise the impact that the War has had on your character, we're taking our cues more from Star Wars than from The Hurt Locker. The focus is on solving the big scary problems and the triumph of human ingenuity and hope.

For a full breakdown of themes which may be troubling, we suggest you look at our equality and diversity page, which includes a full list of potentially upsetting subjects that may occur, along with those which are banned from the game.

Misinformation and gaslighting are not themes of the game. However, setting pages may change over the course of the game - if you come back to a page and find that it looks different to how you remember, don't panic! This is intentional, and all previous iterations of the pages will be available for you to look over in the archive. Note that player characters and NPCs may still lie to you, but the GMs will not ever intentionally mislead out-of-character.

Particular works of media which have influenced the development of CHRONOS include:

• Doctor Who
• Back to the Future
• The Star Wars films
• Anathem by Neil Stephenson
• Steins;Gate
• Brave New World By Aldous Huxley
• Past society games, such as Redemption and Princess!
• Legacy: Life Among the Ruins
• Run Lola Run
• Edge of Tomorrow