The Horror In Time - Timelines & Alternative 2d6 Time Travel Cepheus Engine rpg Campaign Action

 ".the basis of the fear was a horrible elder race of half-polypous, utterly alien entities which had come through space from immeasurably distant universes and had dominated the earth and three other solar planets about 600 million years ago. „
 ~ HPL , The Shadow Out Of Time

This blog post is going to pick right up from here. We know that the flying polyps caused the mass extinction of a huge number of species at various early stages in  time on Earth. This is  according to HP Lovecraft's The Shadow Out of Time. The flying polyps those Lovecraftian horrors finished off anything that crossed their paths in past epochs. According to the H.P. Lovecraft wiki; "Around 70 million years ago (during the Cretaceous era), the Polyps rose from their subterranean haunts to exact revenge by exterminating the Yithians in one fell swoop." They lost because the Yithian's minds had alreay jumped ahead in time according to the novella. 
But this leaves quite a few more  questions then answers. Dire questions of mass extinction events going back to the formation of the Earth. Everyone thinks that Cthulhu & it's ilk are the worst. But the flying polyps may be the real home grown alien  horrors that lurk on the fringes of Earth's solar system. 
In the 2d6 time travel rpg Empire of Time there are a number of alien life forms from the very early stages of Earth. These races know fear through the very thought of the polyp monsters lurking just below Earth's surface. 

Why have the slave trading time traveling empire woven their agents throughout history into every organization, guild, club, etc. they can?! Simply to empire build across the time & space contiuum? No, that's wasteful or have they done it out of sheer desparation?! They know of a few fixed points in time where the polyps have done their dirty work but not all. The Yithians may have kept exacting records but they didn't leave backdoors so that the polyps could find them. Our slave traders may have found a few answers & their not sharing with the rest of the time travelers. But the Yithians are the masters of time travel & deep time, their not the nicest of the alien races that Lovecraft created. And even their scared of the flying polyps. The Yithians abandoned thier own timeline to the polyps after holding them at bay for millions of years. 
Imagine that time travel drives are invented & this event triggers the reawakening of the flying polyps. Why?! Because of the fact that the Yithians machinations of time travel may have attracted the flying polyps in the first place. And things went from bad to worse. So do the PC's stand any chance against these horrors?! In the short term yes & in the long term no. They can destroy the polyps with electrical weaponry ala Yithians. We're talking about an alien species that can sleep for millions of years, whose numbers are unknown, and whose agenda we don't really even understand. 
The fact is that if the flying polyps have colonies & cities below the sands of Mars. A time traveling mission maybe to save the time colonists on Mars before the polyps wake up! Outpost Mars may become more then a casual rpg template. The real horror begins to awaken.