World Without End A Post Apocalyptic Time Travel Movie For Your Old School Science Fantasy Games

 For the past 2 weeks I've been looking into a post apocalyptic movies that really doesn't get a lot of air time these days .  World Without End came out in 1955 and had a pretty solid cast to it. We've got time travel, retro future rocket ships, mutants, shiny underground survivors, science councils,etc. All of the fixings for a post apocalyptic buffet. 

 The real plot is very similar to  HG Wells Time Machine. Wiki had this to say: 

"In 1957, Commander Dr. Eldon Galbraithe (Nelson Leigh), engineer Henry Jaffee (Christopher Dark), radioman Herbert Ellis (Rod Taylor) and scientist John Borden (Hugh Marlowe), are returning to Earth from a trip around Mars when their spaceship is somehow accelerated to incredible velocities. They are knocked unconscious, and crash land on a snow-covered mountain. When they venture out, they discover that they have become victims of time dilation and are now in Earth's future. They theorize, from seeing time-worn gravestones and after their ship's instruments register heightened residual radiation, that a devastating atomic war had broken out in 2188, and that they are at least 200 years past that date. (They later learn that the year is 2508.) Jaffe is particularly hard hit, as he realizes that his wife and children have long since died.

After surviving an ambush by giant, mutant spiders, they are attacked by one of two competing remnants of human society. The "mutates" (as the astronauts label them) are violent, one-eyed surface dwellers who live in a primitive hunter-gatherer society. They have mutated due to generations of exposure to radioactivity and have enslaved the normal humans who dwell among them.

Seeking shelter from the mutates in a cave, the four men discover the entrance to an underground city, whose residents are the descendants of those who fled there from the atomic war. These people live in a high-tech, sophisticated culture. They are a peaceful group, led by Timmek (Everett Glass), the president of the ruling council. Underground, the men have grown feeble and nearly sterile, while the women remain physically vital and ready for romance. Elain (Shirley Patterson), admires a shirtless Herbert Ellis, commenting that the astronauts are "more masculine than our men". Deena (Lisa Montell), rescued from the surface as a child, falls in love with Ellis.

The astronauts try to persuade the underground people to arm themselves and return to the surface, but are unsuccessful. They are content with their comfortable existence.

When Timmek's daughter Garnet (Nancy Gates) shows she is attracted to John Borden, Mories (Booth Colman), a member of the council, becomes jealous. He retrieves the astronauts' confiscated weapons, but has to kill a man when he is caught in the act. Mories plants the guns in the astronauts' quarters, then blames the murder on the newcomers. On finding the weapons in their quarters, Timmek orders the astronauts expelled, but Deena testifies that she saw Mories hide the guns. Mories flees to the surface, where he is quickly killed by the mutates.

With Timmek's full cooperation, the astronauts have a bazooka manufactured and head back to the surface. Fleeing the deadly bazooka fire, the mutates take shelter in the caves. Borden offers to fight their chief, Naga (Mickey Simpson), in single combat for leadership of the mutates in order to save the non-mutated surface dwellers from Naga's threatened slaughter. Borden slays Naga and orders the remaining mutates to leave. The astronauts then establish a thriving settlement, including members of both groups." 

Using World Without End For Your Old School Science Fantasy Games 

 World Without End has a all of the trappings of a classic with weird mutants, science councils, etc. The film is actually rather tight and well done for the time. There's lots to mine here. The major cities of the world and their environs are perfect relic hunting grounds.  There's also any number of unseen mutant species and races running around. Plus the usual vault survivors and the science councils who seem to be all knowing and very dangerous themselves. 

 Then there are the ladies! Those show girl like examples of the human female. This has always bothered me, where the hell do those pretty females come from in these movies? For that matter what is up with those damn science council members? Why are they also such scumbags? The answer is actually pretty simple, their all created Eloi.

 The Mutant Future wiki has an excellent example of the Eloi. From The Mutant Future Wiki: The Eloi are a race of meek, delicate humans, who are the descendants of the social elite. Generations of having every and all needs taken care of has resulted in them becoming vary docile and hedonistic. They are also not really smart, nor are they considerate of others. In their isolated, well hidden communities, they live in a perpetual bliss of drug-induced fantasies and sexual orgies. In the wild, they are just helpless animals to more savage creatures, who see them as easy pray. Some industrious creatures (like Morlocks) would provide all their needs -- from food and shelter, to drugs and protection. The only price is that they are nothing more then human livestock. Do to their unearthly beauty, docile nature and willingness to preform any carnal act, they have become highly valued sex-slaves.

 Then we've got the science council here as well. They're a group of Hyper Eloi if there is was one. These folks are also from the Mutant Future Wiki 

Hyper-Eloi are a class of Eloi who have developed a degree of "super conscious." They are considerably more intelligent then normal Eloi, and they consider their own judgement and morality to be superior of all other races, but they are actually quite arrogant, aloof, and self-righteous. They may ignore the plight - the starvation; the brutality; the human-condition - of the outside world, but those that don't, would ether force outside to conform to the methods that allowed is type of Eloi to become Hyper-Eloi, or to exterminate the "animal-like savages" like vermin. In the later, they would rather breed a race of super-soldiers to carry-out the extermination, then to do it themselves."

You can find all you need to know about the Eloi over at the Mutant Future Wik Right Here 

 About those mutates? Simply another variation on the old Morlock template 

Here's a template for using the Morlocks as PCs right over Here 

 Please watch for inter party conflict Morlocks aren't known for  their charisma 

Among the savage species of the Earth of 2508 is the giant mutant spider 

 You can bet your life if there is one mutant species there is a who bunch of others.  World without End makes an excellent end cap for a Mutant Future/ Star Ships and Space Men second edition game.

A Quick Note On Gear

 

The gear of World Without End looks straight out of WWII surplus. Could there be another reason for this?  I've seen at least 8 movies from the 50s, 60s, and 70s that had this strange retro vintage look.  Perhaps these are worlds where conflict had already been a way of life. Much of the same gear is seen in the PD movie Rocketship XM. You can read about that one right over Here

Much of the gear is standard in both the Mutant Future game book and the second edition Star Ships and Spacemen book. 

 World Without End's Time Line

 There's something really odd about the timeline of World Without End.  As you've problaby noticed the time line of World  Without End is steeped in Cold War paranoia and fear. This is the same fear that echoed throughout the 50s through the 90s. Yet to me its one that might be glimpsed in HG Wells The Time Machine and the Geogre Pal movie later. Could this actually the world we've seen in movie/book Things To Come another Well's Creation? Could this time peroid be another alternative of  the same timeline? Details of  my thoughts about Things To Come can be found right here

 One interesting bit is that we've got a number of primitive nuclear rocket drives being used by those astronauts in these 50s & 60s movies. I'm reminded of Edgar Rice Burroughs Lost Continent. There were some really odd echoes between ERB and Wells in that one.  Could there be an entire post apocalyptic timeline that PCs might explore? Sure there could and you can see some of my musings on that one right Here 

 A random encounter chart for World Without End might look something like this.

World Without End Encounter Chart 1d10 

1. Tribe of Morlocks and mutants looking for trouble. 1d6 1st level fighters 
2. A group of survivor scientists 2nd level NPC eloi and 1d4 1st level fighter handlers 
3. 2 hit dice dire lions on the prowl for lunch. 
4. 1d4 mutant warriors looking for easy pickings. 30% of an artifact or relic
5. 1d6 hunter gather cavemen looking for food and pickings 
6. A group of 1d4 adventurers armed and on a mission to some ruins. 40% of a time displaced astronaut among them 
7. 1d8 scientist/warriors on hover bikes on patrol and scientific inquiry 
8. A group of Wings Over The World planes flies over. Forty percent chance of the planes 1d6 of them spotting your PC unless you hide. 
9. 1d8 Morlock raiding group looking for and about to go on a raid. 
10. A group of  1d6 psychic mutants looking for the ruins of a lost enclave.
    
     Using World Without End For Old School Games 
    
    
    Option number one uses the World Without End as a spring board for your imagination & use Swords & Wizardry, or Labyrinth Lord, & Mutant Future. Here you add in the magical elements & the mutant stuff. The war has forced the world  into a new fantasy age. The world has grown far more Moorcockian & the ages of Law are ending. 
                       There's lots to mine here. The movie  features conventional guns, weird technology such as the nuclear drive space craft  under the command of  the star ship Captain & a very strange twisted United States that none of the players will recognize.

    
    

    The Mega-dungeons are just waiting to be explored! There are possibly thousands of vaults and numerous  ruins full of weird tech, mutants, factions and God knows what else. 

New Post Post Apocalpytic Mars Adventure Using The Fantastic Heroes & Witchery Rpg

This wonder  painting by British space artist Leslie Carr is from the nonfiction book The Exploration of Space (1951), by Arthur C. Clarke. This piece of artwork is my stand in for the Human/Martian city state of Qu Esu. One of the last untouched post Colonial Mars colonies with a working space port and quasi late 1960's technology.

So tonight marked one of the first new sessions of my post apocalyptic Mars games using the Fantastic Heroes And Witchery Rpg. The Fantastic Heroes and Witchery rpg is a retroclone of D&D which offers a wide variety of character races and options, a good solid month ago I ordered a copy of the game from LuLu and the hardback arrived. I'm quite satisfied with this hardback.

For months I've been quietly going over the game after reading Venger Satanis's review of it HERE  . And today after reading Metal Earth's post about his own upcoming Fantastic Heroes and Witchery/Mars game HERE. First let me say that I hope that you heal up fast Metal Earth ! 

I'm glad there's another Mars game out there. My PAM game is actually set in the post Colonial period of Mars when the majority of Martians have mutated and gone back to the traditional tribal ways. The game is partially based on the old pulp science fiction and fantasy magazines of yesteryear and 1950's science fiction films.Films such as Rocket Ship XM from 1950.

The PC's in tonight's game are going to be descendants from the various alien who became trapped on Mars, mutant Martian races, humans from the domed colonies, and more. Most of which are easily transported from Fantastic Heroes & Witchery. There are reasons for the various Mars, alternate worlds, and far flung colonies. Worm hole gates connected a series of Mars and Mars like worlds together only to be shattered apart as the planar gate system was wrecked by the Entropic Wars of Mars. 

Many of the effects of the Apocalpytic events of Mars have uncovered hidden super science relics of the ancient past and awakened the long dormant forces of Entropic magic upon the planet. Various planar powers have also turned a very jealous eye towards the planet and the ancient heritage of Mars turns it volume up among the natives. Earth is desperate to keep a claim on Mars but its a tenuous hold at best and a bit too little too late. While the majority of Martian survivors cling to existence, out in the sands of Mars ancient evils stir. A few city states and hidden enclaves survive. 

Tonight the players held a character workshop to get into the ins and outs of FH&W. There's quite a bit of difference between other retroclones and this new system. There's bits of 1st,2nd,3rd, and even a bit of fourth edition within Fantastic Heroes and Witchery. Yet it seems all good and the players responded to the system quite nicely. So how is this new system going to marry up with the other version of the post apocalyptic Mars games I've run in the past? Only time will tell but so far so good. 

There's a free version of the Fantastic Heroes and Witchery rpg right HERE or you can buy the hardback right over HERE 

 There are also two free downloads that you might want grab if your getting into using the FH&W rpg  - The Pulp Adventures pdf by James Cast, that tweaks existing classes to play the game in the Pulp genre. (And by the way this would make for perfect classes to play in the Cthulhu 1930 genre!) available HERE 

And the Rayguns, Rocket ships, and Robots that neatly fits in science fiction and science fantasy elements as well as including some new races and equipment. HERE

Now I've read through Warriors Of The Red Planet Retroclone and I've run it a couple of times. I think its a fine Beta & as such well worth the price of admission but I don't think that its the end all and be all of retroclones. That being said I do think its a damn fine resource for running a Mars game. 
Something has happened to the price of the game that was back in June of this year five dollars, its now increased to 16.50 and yet still reads as a Beta version.
Hmm available right HERE  But I'd wait till LuLu has a very good sale. 

 I'm actually thinking of using the Bandits and Battle cruisers sci fi space ship rules instead with Fantastic Heroes and Witchery but there needs to be some adjustments.
The character workshop went very well and it doesn't look like its going to take much to marry up the existing PAM game with this new one.
More to come! 

Spaceways 1953 Movie For Your Old School Space Opera Campaign

There are some classic movies and then there are movies that become classic for another reason. This is one of those sci fi classic cheese fests. I happen to love this movie.   According to Wiki: 

Spaceways is a 1953 British-American, black and white, science fiction film co-produced by Hammer Film Productions Ltd. and Lippert Productions Inc.. It was filmed entirely inEngland by the Hammer company, with Michael Carreras as producer-of-record and American Robert L. Lippert as uncredited co-producer, from a screenplay by Paul Tabori and Richard Landau based on a radio play by Charles Eric Maine.

The Plot: 

The film starred Howard Duff and Eva Bartok, with Alan Wheatley, directed by Terence Fisher. It was distributed in the UK by Exclusive Films Ltd. and in the USA by Lippert Pictures Inc.

The plot dealt with the first manned spaceflight (piloted co-ed by Duff and Bartok) against the backdrop of Duff's character's failing marriage, his wife's infidelity and murder (for which Duff is suspect), and his budding romance with Bartok, who plays a renowned mathematician working on the space project.

Some of the special effects shots of the rocket taking off were taken from Rocketship X-M.

All of the classic sci fi elements are there from the "space leathers" to the classic rocket ship. 

Using Space Ways For Your OSR Campaign 

Elements of Space Ways from 1954 has gotten recycled into endless movies and other science fictional magazines etc. For the various campaigns I've run elements of this movie have becomes the back bone of low rent spacer districts. The suits, the rockets,etc. are all found on backwater planets still in operation and still being manufactured. 

For a game like Explorers and Stars Without Number. The "Space Leathers" seen here are considered old fashioned and slightly out of fashion among spacers but still offering superior atmosphere holding. These suits by modern standards allow a spacer to put a small sensor suite on the suit. 

These wonderful rocket ship/space planes have been switched over to an ion/nuclear drive combination allowing them to be used for planetary landing. In more advanced quarters a small Spike drive 1 has been installed in a Stars Without Number style planetary system.

These rocket ships remains have been seen orbiting within the Carcosa system and other known areas of Lovecraftian space. 

Within the Star Ships and Spacemen second edition universe these ships never went out of service. They form the backbone of mining outposts and the less then savory  corners of the universe as mining vessels and rocket jockey's ships. 

In a game like Mutant Future or other post apocalyptic style games these rocket ships might still be orbiting the Earth just waiting for a group of adventures to make the great leap outward. 

The Type 78 Ion Rocket Plane For SWN
Power 3/2 free  Mass 5/0
AC :8
Hit Points : 17 

Crew 1/20

Speed:2 

AC:9 

Fittings : Spike Drive -1, Atmosphere Configuration, Extended Life Support, 6 tons of Cargo Space

Based on a centuries old design these work horses have seen action in every system within the Talon Sector. A very reliable and versatile design. Many times the owners of these ships strip out two tons of cargo space and equip these ships with extra sensor suites or for personal defense Sand thrower batteries. These rocket planes are also used for Capital class drop planes for atmosphere configurations. 

Flight To Mars Movie 1951 For Your Old School Space Opera And Mutant Future Game

Flight To Mars is a "classic" 1951 movie about an expediation to Mars. The movie might as well be a companion piece to Rocket Ship X-M. The movie uses the same sets, costumes, and themes as Rocket Ship. Believe it or not there is a ton to mine for games. 

Flight has some really great things going for it. For example the whole movie could take place in a "Fall Out" Style retro future universe. The costumes, colors, etc are all very snap shot moment in time which means this has some great cross over potential for any of the Goblinoid families of games. Especially Mutant Future and Star Ships and Space Men Second Edition. 

Plot according To Wiki: 

The story involves the arrival on Mars of an American scientific expedition team, who discover an underground-dwelling, dying civilization of Martians. They are anatomically human, and are suspicious of the earthmen's motives, with the majority of the governing body finally deciding to keep the earthmen prisoner.

This film reuses almost all the cabin interior details from Rocketship X-M (Lippert Pictures, 1950, and filmed at another studio), except for some of the flight instruments. Even the spaceflight noises are reused. Similarly, the concepts of spaceflight are those postulated in that earlier film.

The main differences are this film postulates a planned flight to Mars, whereas the earlier film postulates an accidental flight to Mars, which accident occurs during a planned flight to the Moon.

Additionally, this film postulates a Martian species which is in many ways superior to Mankind, and poses a long-term, strategic threat there to, whereas the earlier film postulates a Martian species which is pre-literate, and a throw-back, as a consequence of a global nuclear holocaust which occurred many millennia earlier, and poses only an immediate, tactical threat to the voyagers.

A sequel, Voyage to Venus was proposed but never made.^[2]

Here's the Trailer and Movie itself. Go take a look but be warned that this is a terrible movie with some fantastic ideas. Hey if Mystery Science Theater can get away with this so can you. 

Using Flight To Mars Movie 1951 For Your Old School Space Opera And Mutant Future Game 

This is a Mars that suffered a short sale nuclear war and is just starting to sort of crawl out of the redoubts. Mars has a tradition of vast underground mega dungeons and this film is no exception. The costumes look like they came straight out of Rocky Jones and that makes for great gaming . These Martians are the last of their kind and could be the descendants of Bouroughs Redmen or even Earth colonists left behind centuries ago. There are certainly other possibilities here as well. 

The Pioneer Class Nuclear Rocket Ship 

The United Nations Explore 12

Crew : 5 

Hit Points :55

Armor Class: 6

Drive System -Ion Sublight Pulse Drive 

Nuclear Fuel Drive sub system 

This vessel was part of the United Nations program of exploration right after the introduction of pre warp technology in 2001. The pioneer class is one of the more useful classes of pre atomic warp capable vessels. It is used in exploration, asteroid mining, and deep solar system exploration. It is noted for using an Ion Sublight pulse engine and a nuclear fuel sub system making this one of the more stable of the Atomic Rocket series the Earth was producing at the time. This rocket ship is still being produced today for a wide variety of applications.  

Weird Martian Wasteland Encounters 

1. Scholar Scientists 3 hit points in full atmosphere suits, standard blasters 1d4 points of damage 50 yard range 
2. Sand Rays 2 hit points each but capable of swallowing a man for 2 points of damage 
3. Degenerate cavemen red men 2 hit points each and armed with spears, clubs, rocks. Very cunning though. 50% chance of mutations  
4. Hover cycle riders 3 hit points each and armed with stunners. Slavers traveling in a slave barge 
5. Armed mutant thugs looking for trouble 1d4 #  2 hit points and armed with blasters 1d4 points of damage and 30 yard range 
6. Mutant Psionic overlord and slave party, 4 hit points and 1d4 random psychic powers. Armed with a vibro sword +1 and a ray pistol 4 hit points of damage and 40 yard range 
7. Warriors of the Waste land in hover car, 1d4 2nd level raiders in a hover car looking for trouble armed with blaster rifles 1d4 points of damage 70 yard range 
8. Martian Walkers 4 hit points each armed with 1d6 damage heat rays and 70 yard range scouts 
9. 1d6 red men mutant slaves escaped from caravan 
10. 1d4 Brain lasher warriors in a flyer looking for slaves and trouble. 1d4 random mutations 

Night Time Random Weird Wasteland Encounters 1d10 

1. Degenerate Red men neanderthals raiding party 4 hit points, spears 20% chance  of mutant powers 
2. Mutant Plant Monsters Cloud 1d10 hit points, spore implantation attack 1d4 damage 
3. Mutant Raiding party 1d10 hover cars, 1d4 hit points 40% mutant powers 
4. Dust Demon 4 hit points, level drain attack 
5. Veterans of The Psychic Wars - Recruiting & looking for a fire, food, etc
6. Hallucination Dealer - Time Lost ,2 hit points 6 bodyguards, 3 hit points each 
7. Night Wolves 3 hit points ~ wolves 1d10 # powers as per blink dogs 
8. Damned Soldiers~ 3 hit points,# 1d10 on Nightmares armed with machine guns 1d4 damage 
9. Sonic Attack UFOS 1d3 # ,3 hit points, sonic attack 1d4 
10. Degenerate Red men neanderthals raiding party 4 hit points, spears 20% of mutant powers 

The Post Apocalytic Mars of Flight To Mars 

Like its companion movie Flight to Mars is really a blank canvas that you as a DM can paint with. The sky is really the limit here. For my post apocalyptic Mars game this movie really offered me an opportunity to go to town. 

The underground city/redoubt was actually the ruins of a Krell outpost that connected with the Martian undergrounds of Burroughs. This was taken over by human colonists and red men descendants from the time of Earth's Imperial period on Mars. When relations broke down the nukes and worse started to fly. 

There had been terraforming going on 

 and the planet was only 78 % to Earth standard when the atmosphere plants broke down completely. 

The Earth itself has suffered during these "Atomic Wars" and are going back out to the colonies to reclaim what's rightfully theirs.
The 40s post WWII gear and space leathers from these films are great for a DM trying to create a retro futuristic campaign especially on Mars. Simply add your favorite Martian element and your ready to go.
This sort of campaign is perfect for X plorers, Mutant Future, or any number of science fantasy retroclones. This would also make a great intro game for something like Terminal Space as well. 
For further options go over here and take a look at Rocket Ship X-M for more Martian thrills
Here

World Without End A Post Apocalyptic Time Travel Movie For Your Old School Science Fantasy Games

 For the past 2 weeks I've been looking into a post apocalyptic movie that really doesn't get a lot of air time these days .  World Without End came out in 1955 and had a pretty solid cast to it. We've got time travel, retro future rocket ships, mutants, shiny underground survivors, science councils,etc. All of the fixings for a post apocalyptic buffet. 




 The real plot is very similar to  HG Wells Time Machine. Wiki had this to say: 

"In 1957, Commander Dr. Eldon Galbraithe (Nelson Leigh), engineer Henry Jaffee (Christopher Dark), radioman Herbert Ellis (Rod Taylor) and scientist John Borden (Hugh Marlowe), are returning to Earth from a trip around Mars when their spaceship is somehow accelerated to incredible velocities. They are knocked unconscious, and crash land on a snow-covered mountain. When they venture out, they discover that they have become victims of time dilation and are now in Earth's future. They theorize, from seeing time-worn gravestones and after their ship's instruments register heightened residual radiation, that a devastating atomic war had broken out in 2188, and that they are at least 200 years past that date. (They later learn that the year is 2508.) Jaffe is particularly hard hit, as he realizes that his wife and children have long since died.

After surviving an ambush by giant, mutant spiders, they are attacked by one of two competing remnants of human society. The "mutates" (as the astronauts label them) are violent, one-eyed surface dwellers who live in a primitive hunter-gatherer society. They have mutated due to generations of exposure to radioactivity and have enslaved the normal humans who dwell among them.

Seeking shelter from the mutates in a cave, the four men discover the entrance to an underground city, whose residents are the descendants of those who fled there from the atomic war. These people live in a high-tech, sophisticated culture. They are a peaceful group, led by Timmek (Everett Glass), the president of the ruling council. Underground, the men have grown feeble and nearly sterile, while the women remain physically vital and ready for romance. Elain (Shirley Patterson), admires a shirtless Herbert Ellis, commenting that the astronauts are "more masculine than our men". Deena (Lisa Montell), rescued from the surface as a child, falls in love with Ellis.

The astronauts try to persuade the underground people to arm themselves and return to the surface, but are unsuccessful. They are content with their comfortable existence.

When Timmek's daughter Garnet (Nancy Gates) shows she is attracted to John Borden, Mories (Booth Colman), a member of the council, becomes jealous. He retrieves the astronauts' confiscated weapons, but has to kill a man when he is caught in the act. Mories plants the guns in the astronauts' quarters, then blames the murder on the newcomers. On finding the weapons in their quarters, Timmek orders the astronauts expelled, but Deena testifies that she saw Mories hide the guns. Mories flees to the surface, where he is quickly killed by the mutates.

With Timmek's full cooperation, the astronauts have a bazooka manufactured and head back to the surface. Fleeing the deadly bazooka fire, the mutates take shelter in the caves. Borden offers to fight their chief, Naga (Mickey Simpson), in single combat for leadership of the mutates in order to save the non-mutated surface dwellers from Naga's threatened slaughter. Borden slays Naga and orders the remaining mutates to leave. The astronauts then establish a thriving settlement, including members of both groups." 

Using World Without End For Your Old School Science Fantasy Games 

 World Without End has a all of the trappings of a classic with weird mutants, science councils, etc. The film is actually rather tight and well done for the time. There's lots to mine here. The major cities of the world and their environs are perfect relic hunting grounds.  There's also any number of unseen mutant species and races running around. Plus the usual vault survivors and the science councils who seem to be all knowing and very dangerous themselves. 

 Then there are the ladies! Those show girl like examples of the human female. This has always bothered me, where the hell do those pretty females come from in these movies? For that matter what is up with those damn science council members? Why are they also such scumbags? The answer is actually pretty simple, their all created Eloi.
 The Mutant Future wiki has an excellent example of the Eloi. From The Mutant Future Wiki: The Eloi are a race of meek, delicate humans, who are the descendants of the social elite. Generations of having every and all needs taken care of has resulted in them becoming vary docile and hedonistic. They are also not really smart, nor are they considerate of others. In their isolated, well hidden communities, they live in a perpetual bliss of drug-induced fantasies and sexual orgies. In the wild, they are just helpless animals to more savage creatures, who see them as easy pray. Some industrious creatures (like Morlocks) would provide all their needs -- from food and shelter, to drugs and protection. The only price is that they are nothing more then human livestock. Do to their unearthly beauty, docile nature and willingness to preform any carnal act, they have become highly valued sex-slaves.

 Then we've got the science council here as well. They're a group of Hyper Eloi if there is was one. These folks are also from the Mutant Future Wiki 

Hyper-Eloi are a class of Eloi who have developed a degree of "super conscious." They are considerably more intelligent then normal Eloi, and they consider their own judgement and morality to be superior of all other races, but they are actually quite arrogant, aloof, and self-righteous. They may ignore the plight - the starvation; the brutality; the human-condition - of the outside world, but those that don't, would ether force outside to conform to the methods that allowed is type of Eloi to become Hyper-Eloi, or to exterminate the "animal-like savages" like vermin. In the later, they would rather breed a race of super-soldiers to carry-out the extermination, then to do it themselves."

You can find all you need to know about the Eloi over at the Mutant Future Wik Right Here 

 About those mutates? Simply another variation on the old Morlock template 

Here's a template for using the Morlocks as PCs right over Here

 Please watch for inter party conflict Morlocks aren't known for  their charisma 

Among the savage species of the Earth of 2508 is the giant mutant spider 

 You can bet your life if there is one mutant species there is a who bunch of others.  World without End makes an excellent end cap for a Mutant Future/ Star Ships and Space Men second edition game.

A Quick Note On Gear

 

The gear of World Without End looks straight out of WWII surplus. Could there be another reason for this?  I've seen at least 8 movies from the 50s, 60s, and 70s that had this strange retro vintage look.  Perhaps these are worlds where conflict had already been a way of life. Much of the same gear is seen in the PD movie Rocketship XM. You can read about that one right over Here

Much of the gear is standard in both the Mutant Future game book and the second edition Star Ships and Spacemen book. 

 World Without End's Time Line
 There's something really odd about the timeline of World Without End.  As you've problaby noticed the time line of World  Without End is steeped in Cold War paranoia and fear. This is the same fear that echoed throughout the 50s through the 90s. Yet to me its one that might be glimpsed in HG Wells The Time Machine and the Geogre Pal movie later. Could this actually the world we've seen in movie/book Things To Come another Well's Creation? Could this time peroid be another alternative of  the same timeline? Details of  my thoughts about Things To Come can be found right here


 One interesting bit is that we've got a number of primitive nuclear rocket drives being used by those astronauts in these 50s & 60s movies. I'm reminded of Edgar Rice Burroughs Lost Continent. There were some really odd echoes between ERB and Wells in that one.  Could there be an entire post apocalyptic timeline that PCs might explore? Sure there could and you can see some of my musings on that one right Here
 A random encounter chart for World Without End might look something like this.


World Without End Encounter Chart 1d10 

1. Tribe of Morlocks and mutants looking for trouble. 1d6 1st level fighters 
2. A group of survivor scientists 2nd level NPC eloi and 1d4 1st level fighter handlers 
3. 2 hit dice dire lions on the prowl for lunch. 
4. 1d4 mutant warriors looking for easy pickings. 30% of an artifact or relic
5. 1d6 hunter gather cavemen looking for food and pickings 
6. A group of 1d4 adventurers armed and on a mission to some ruins. 40% of a time displaced astronaut among them 
7. 1d8 scientist/warriors on hover bikes on patrol and scientific inquiry 
8. A group of Wings Over The World planes flies over. Forty percent chance of the planes 1d6 of them spotting your PC unless you hide. 
9. 1d8 Morlock raiding group looking for and about to go on a raid. 
10. A group of  1d6 psychic mutants looking for the ruins of a lost enclave.
     Using World Without End
    
    
    Option number one uses the World Without End as a spring board for your imagination & use Swords & Wizardry, or Labyrinth Lord, & Mutant Future. Here you add in the magical elements & the mutant stuff. The war has forced the world  into a new fantasy age. The world has grown far more Moorcockian & the ages of Law are ending. 
                       There's lots to mine here. The movie  features conventional guns, weird technology such as the nuclear drive space craft  under the command of  the star ship Captain & a very strange twisted United States that none of the players will recognize.
    

    
    

    The Mega-dungeons are just waiting to be explored! There are possibly thousands of vaults and numerous  ruins full of weird tech, mutants, factions and God knows what else.