Catalog of the Weird Parallels

[Ottriman]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I am just imaging some of the horrible things that would happen to an agent when their clothing wears them...in all seriousness, such a world would be instantly lethal to humans, as they would be slaughtered en masse by inanimate objects.

Yeah, thankfully counteragents have been developed that can keep them alive. But that won't matter too much, as this place is utterly horrible to any non-native.

(My idea for a countermeasure that I just htought of now, not when I made it would be that Yakov Smirnoff jokes can alter causality back to "normal" there. Thus a speaker that makes yakov smirnoff jokes regularly could keep the person personally in normal cause and effect order).

[Culture20]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I am just imaging some of the horrible things that would happen to an agent when their clothing wears them...in all seriousness, such a world would be instantly lethal to humans, as they would be slaughtered en masse by inanimate objects.

The really strange part about this timeline seems to be that the “inanimate” objects are the true sentients, and they’re moving the non-sentient humans around in some worldwide version of Weekend At Bernie’s which is mimicing homeline history to a certain degree. All of the actions are initiated by the objects, and done to the humans. The humans’ numbers ebb and flow as the tide as they’re spread by disease and eaten by all the food. I suppose the diseases or food don’t have to be sapient. The diseases might not even be alive, as they’re just a reproduction vector, but some of the things objects would do to people would require a certain degree of intelligence.
It’s possible that sentient humans might be recognized by the local animate objects as sentient, but also monsters who wear the corpses of clothes, and parasitically infest a lobotomized object they’ve never met before.

[David Johnston2]

Champions had an alternate universe that went the Osmosis Jones/Cells At Work route. Cells at Work would be very dangerous since out-time visitors as unfamiliar entities would be classed as potential infecting agents by the white blood cells.

[PTTG]

Stealing this from the conversation on Sci Fi Seeds:

Most worldlines failed to advance very quickly in the space race; it is so much easier to destroy than to create, after all. But in a few, the competition reached even greater hights of achievement. Such is the case with one worldline that Homeline has yet to discover; let's call it Rivas. There, a perfect balance of power kept the two world powers neck-and-neck for decades. In addition, scientists saw helium-3 reserves of the moon as something that would soon become a critical resource.

And so, in 1986, US astronauts constructed Diana Base on a lunar plain surveyed and prospected by soviet cosmonauts. The facility grew over the years, and by 1997 it had extensive solar arrays, greenhouses, and research facilities dedicated to survival in space and to fusion power. The facility housed three reusable spaceplanes (for Earth return) and frequently refueled Soviet vessels. In turn, cosmonauts provided some of the largest bulk shipments to the city, often working alongside astronauts despite the international tensions.

After more than a decade and several successful experiments on Earth, Diana finally performed the miracle she had been built for in March of 1998, when US and Soviet researchers collaboratively completed an entirely self-sufficient fusion power plant.

Which, coincidentally enough, provided a pulse of power sufficient to activate a long-dormant Brigadoon on the lunar surface.

The inhabitants of Diana Base now drift from worldline to worldline, studying the Earth from far above, and hoping they can learn how to use their fusion generator to trigger a return to their homeworld. In the decades that have passed, they have expanded their habitat, occasionally communicated with those worlds with radio, and very rarely have even ventured to alien earths for supplies, when they think that the Earth in question has the resources needed to send them home.

[doctorevilbrain]

They have spaceplanes on the moon? What are they going to fly in? There's no air. I don't get it.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by doctorevilbrain

They have spaceplanes on the moon? What are they going to fly in? There's no air. I don't get it.

They're there for use as spacecraft that can land on Earth and return to the Moon. It's the weak point of this idea: there's no plausible reason for hauling the weight of wings and heat-shielding all the way to the Moon.

Building the spaceplanes there would provide a reason for them to be there, but that isn't mentioned. It's also very challenging to build a spaceplane that can make a Moon-Earth-Moon journey without refueling after takeoff from Earth, without fusion power.

This isn't actually plausible. It looks better on the surface than Space: 1999, but that's a pretty low bar.

[PTTG]

The spaceplanes are one-way from Luna to Earth. That is a really, really low delta-v flight plan, and it skips a time- and fuel-consuming transfer in Earth orbit. (in fact, deplaning between the moon and earth means that your space-only vessel can't do any significant areobraking since all that heavy thermal insulation aught to go on the landing craft or else it's redundant). So any moon-to-earth craft that's trying to be cost-efficient will likely be designed to withstand reentry.

This is all a lot easier thanks to the fuel refineries on the moon. The spaceplanes use hydrogen/oxygen mixes from lunar ice deposits. (Deep space ships designed to mine asteroids were planned to use Nuclear Thermal rockets, but they weren't fully deployed; only one NTR was sent up before the incident.)

In normal conditions, the spaceplanes are launched rather like the space shuttle, albeit with reusable fuel and booster stages. They're much smaller than the OTL shuttle, as they're designed for crew transfer to the moon and back. Anyway, when they venture to a given Earth, they specifically ensured that it could make the repairs and fuel tanks the ship might need, never mind the propellant.

The base was sometimes called a city, but really just a small town of ~700, plus 150 cosmonaut visitors at the time of the incident. It has a full machine shop ready to build any mechanical part needed by any ship the US designed; it was, after all, going to be the template for a Mars colony.

[dcarson]

Launching from the Moon they can use a mass driver of some sort to save on fuel.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._s78_23252.jpg

The problem will be getting enough desperately needed parts and raw materials back to the Moon.

[ericthered]

Mida-4


This version of earth seems to be composed entirely of gold, with the world frozen into golden death sometime around 700 BC. The change seems to have been slow, taking at least a year. Items left on Midas-4 for a year or more turn into gold. Items removed from Midas-4 return to their natural state after 3 days or so.



Midas is remarkably hostile. Gravity is at 3.5 G's, making moving around difficult and jarring. The atmosphere has double density, but twice as much radiation is received, and there are no clouds, making sunburn very easy to get. Worse still, the atoms of a visitor slowly turn to gold, causing gold poisoning in organics, and disrupting electronics that stay there for too long.



The cause of why midas-4 turns things to gold is unknown, but many researchers believe it might actually be the result of the mythic Midas's poorly considered wish.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Mida-4


This version of earth seems to be composed entirely of gold, w

Midas is remarkably hostile. Gravity is at 3.5 G's, making moving around difficult and jarring. The atmosphere has double density, but twice as much radiation is received, and there are no clouds, making sunburn very easy to get. Worse still, the atoms of a visitor slowly turn to gold, causing gold poisoning in organics, and disrupting electronics that stay there for too long.

One of the weird things is why it's even this friendly. Gold is a very good thermal conductor and if Earth was solid gold as other things indicate the molten core and the room temeprature surface would soon reach thermal equilibrium. An at least transient very hot phase for the surface would seem unavoidable.

A solid gold planet probably wouldn't have an intrinisic magnetic field any more which might expalin soem of the radiation problems.

Then there are other geological (aurological?) issues reulting in probable gross deformation of the surface at a minimum. A mountian of gold probably susides in upon itself. Gold is not a great structural material.

that al of this ahsn't hapend of course means there's magic involved as if the shiny stuff itself was enough of an indicator.