INfiltration(sic)

DryaUnda · 09-04-2004, 03:05 AM

Getting right into the topic, the In Nomine pocket multiverse has already gotten into the Infinite Worlds (or not, if I'm incorrect).

I'm sure that some of you are familiar with the first bit of circumstantial evidence, the example pocket multiverse in 4e p.531. Earth, Heaven, Hell, In-between space.

Next comes one of the worst weird parallels, The United States of Lizardia. "Surprise! Everything's the same, but people are all lizards!". Could this powerful example of bad comedy be a product of the boredom of Dark Humor? If the answer is no, then please tell me how this insult to allohistory could possibly exist?

Lastly, and anticlimactically (maybe I should write scientific papers), are the known mythological beings. Infinity will probably find more elves and vampires based on modern mythology than modernized p'ca and other relatively obscure beings. As to how this is anticlimactic, the real reason could be simply due to faulty perception on the part of Infinity. This may be so many Homeline Echoes, and maybe one from Centrum, have been found.

I'll conclude with a simple question: what else besides Kobal (and Eli, unless you really were going to give a different answer) has infiltrated the Infinite Worlds?

milliken · 09-04-2004, 11:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DryaUnda

Getting right into the topic, the In Nomine pocket multiverse has already gotten into the Infinite Worlds (or not, if I'm incorrect).

I'm sure that some of you are familiar with the first bit of circumstantial evidence, the example pocket multiverse in 4e p.531. Earth, Heaven, Hell, In-between space.

I don't know for sure, but I think all the existing GURPS worlds are supposed to be part of the Infinite Worlds setting. And GURPS In Nomine exists, so....

And it seems to be on p. 529, not 531.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DryaUnda

Next comes one of the worst weird parallels, The United States of Lizardia. "Surprise! Everything's the same, but people are all lizards!". Could this powerful example of bad comedy be a product of the boredom of Dark Humor? If the answer is no, then please tell me how this insult to allohistory could possibly exist?

God is insane...? There seems to be plenty of other evidence of this in IN.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DryaUnda

I'll conclude with a simple question: what else besides Kobal (and Eli, unless you really were going to give a different answer) has infiltrated the Infinite Worlds?

Jean and Vapula, probably. They're both on the lookout for unusual tech (for different reasons), and at least in Jean's case, it seems reasonable he knows about the potential for alternate universes implicit in the structure of the Symphony's corporeal components. But revealing anything like the truth behind the Infinite Worlds settings could be very demoralizing to the Host. So if he does know, he'd certainly not be telling anyone. Jean would also probably have the ability to construct some way to travel across the worlds, but unless it seemed that the Symphony was threatened, he would likely think that to be more of a danger than a useful notion.

DryaUnda · 09-04-2004, 05:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by milliken

And it seems to be on p. 529, not 531.

(checks book) Damn, I hate it when that happens. Thanks for the correction, wouldn't want to mislead anyone.

Quote:

Originally Posted by milliken

God is insane...? There seems to be plenty of other evidence of this in IN.

I personally think that the In Nomine God is like Ed from Cowboy Beebop.

Quote:

Originally Posted by milliken

But revealing anything like the truth behind the Infinite Worlds settings could be very demoralizing to the Host. So if he does know, he'd certainly not be telling anyone.

A reference I forgot in my haste, didn't IN Anime state than Blandine would have knowledge of other worlds?

Regarding your comment, why would it be demoralizing?

Quote:

Originally Posted by milliken

Jean would also probably have the ability to construct some way to travel across the worlds, but unless it seemed that the Symphony was threatened, he would likely think that to be more of a danger than a useful notion.

Isn't the insulting absurdity of the USL a threat to the Symphony?

milliken · 09-04-2004, 08:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DryaUnda

I personally think that the In Nomine God is like Ed from Cowboy Beebop.

Now that's just scary....

Quote:

Originally Posted by DryaUnda

A reference I forgot in my haste, didn't IN Anime state than Blandine would have knowledge of other worlds?

I don't recall, but IN Anime isn't part of GURPS canon, really. Unless SJ decided it is....

Quote:

Originally Posted by DryaUnda

Regarding your comment, why would it be demoralizing?

The existence of other universes *not* created by God would lend a lot of strength to the ethereal origin heresy. From the IN cosmology point of view, it would make Heaven and Hell look a lot more like ethereal realms. As would most of the parallel universe -- one likely celestial view of them would be that they're just realms in the Far Marches.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DryaUnda

Isn't the insulting absurdity of the USL a threat to the Symphony?

From Jean's viewpoint, in a word, no.

Falco · 09-04-2004, 08:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DryaUnda

I personally think that the In Nomine God is like Ed from Cowboy Beebop.

Dude, that is so not right. Very, very funny, but not right at all. :)

Archangel Beth · 09-05-2004, 07:45 AM

Quite frankly, if I were doing IN Infinite Worlds, I'd pitch the "pocket gods" out the window -- except maaaaaaybe for ethereals. Most ethereals, that is. Who knows what the Farthest Marches might contain, including Tethers to other timelines?

Yves and Kronos get more overtly powerful -- if any PCs know about their Superiors' far-ranging interests -- but hey, they've been covertly powerful critters for a long time. It won't break anything to add that in.

But the War would extend throughout all the possible areas, with celestials centered in one world-universe and not moving to other ones, typically, because it's too much of a nuisance for a Superior to keep putting Area Knowledge into their heads. (Or they might just keep their various world-organizations separate; see an angel you've never met? Maybe that's one assigned to some other world. See a demon waiting for a debriefing, in a weird form for an Impudite? Maybe it's from Lizardia... But you never get much time to chat.)

Jean and Vapula also get much more powerful -- though you could do some interesting things if only Kronos and Yves knew about alternate worlds, until humans got close... Then Jean would probably be handed the next set of encyclopedias and told that someone was close, and Vapula would be trying to infiltrate his demons into places so that he could either steal the invention from the humans or get enough data to invent it first. Whichever Superior got it first would have a big advantage, and would be trying to keep the other one's influence away...

(Mmm, sounds like a campaign, that does. Either one for (G)IN, or with poor humans finding out that in the middle of their political problems, there's a couple of supernatural factions waging a semi-covert war around them...)

William · 09-10-2004, 12:18 PM

Whee, IW discussion! (This is an area I'm trying to keep a very close eye on, because it has the possibility of upsetting some serious IN assumptions.) Here's the

It's pretty important to me that God be trans-dimensional. There are a few ways this could be evidenced in an IN/IW game: first off, the IW section of the 4e book mentions "slumming angels," "reformed demons," and "retired godlings," which seem to map pretty well onto Outcasts, Renegades, and Ethereals... and it looks like their powers still work on Homeline, which slots them in as Cosmic instead of magic or psi. Cosmic, the pros point out, it for godlings, which is basically the category involved. The possibility that Ethereals' powers still work on Homeline would still allow just enough support for the Ethereal heresy that even a trans-dimensional God could have the Ethereals running around making their claims.

Creators in other pocket multiverses? Demiurges. They may even think that they *are* Creators, and remember creating their dimensions, which is fine. Java would call them a constructor, but they were still "programmed" by God. Or, hey, maybe they're aspects of God! What does Yves recall about the Creation? If he remembers the Universe splitting into infinite timelines, he could have chosen a special one to inhabit as a focused being, there to do his work. But he knew someday he'd have to branch out....

Afterlives in other pocket multiverses? Powerful Domains in their local Marches, heavily reshaped by belief. Occasionally, souls might escape and head to the Higher Heavens or disband. Otherwise, as the local gods (Ethereals all) expect them to work. (And Uriel sticks his head downs Jacob's Ladder and yells, "I told you so!")

Fate and Destiny: if all universes are linked at a fundamental level(a good interpretation of this would be that each timeline exists as in the potentiality of other timelines; Fate and Destiny certainly seem to resolve matters in this collection of potentials), it wouldn't matter significantly *where* an angel did his work, so much as that he continued to do his best to push for Destiny. If no one Universe can meet its Fate or Destiny without all Universes doing so and vice versa, it serves both God and Lucifer's purposes to focus as much resources as possible on one special universe. Until contact is made, at which point you can reap advantage in your home universe by working in others occasionally.

The nature of souls: are doubles in other parallels the same soul? I've thought about this and figured that this would explain a number of things! Why do souls sometimes show up late at Hellmouth or the Pearly Gates, years after they died? They were waiting for their doubles to resolve their own lives! If each soul experiences other souls' choices as part of its own potentiality, each double suddenly becomes important, because their choices affect the possibilities other universes will make available to their doubles. At the end of their corporeal lives, some of the possibilities collapse (the souls in those universes disband), and the others move on to an afterlife. Experimental analysis with Divine Destiny and Fated Future might be able to confirm that no human soul ever meets Fate and not Destiny while another soul meets Destiny and not Fate (or at least never find an example of this occurring); at most, some doubles meet one or both, while others meet neither. Perhaps they recombine in the Higher Heavens or Lower Hells, perhaps not. It might be quite comforting to some people to suspect that disbandment in one Universe doesn't mean ultimate death for that soul. Is there a universe out there with a Lower Heavens still carrying an Archangel Raphael? Sure, why not. IN can play alternate-histories too. She could be a recognizeable "harmonic" on the same underlying soul. Though I would pin down that there is no Universe where Uriel is still around, or the Grigori are not Outcast, or someone other than Laurence is commanding the Hosts of Heaven. Some pronouncements made by God simply seem to be trans-universal -- good evidence for the cross-timeline-Creator hypothesis.

Finally, some setting details. I expect Yves knows instinctively about other timelines, Kronos suspects or has verified, Jean has the tech (and projectors *do* work from the IN homeworld; or at the very least, relics and Songs can manage the trick), and Jean has been working like mad to make sure that human tech turns away from developments in the direction of parachronic tech, mostly to keep Vapula the Hell away from this. Once Vapula cracks it or external contact is made, though, he'll release the tech he's been sitting on. The natives from the IN world in Homeline and Centrum are pretty much accidental. It seems that pushing one timeline has subtle effects on the others, so the same restrictions on intervention are promulgated, and most celestials simply find that their best work is done at home, since onl indirect advantage can be obtained working elsewhere. All the usual powers work fine in other Universes; psi might work in the IN homeworld, while magic wouldn't seem to. Powers which require a link to a particular being, such as an Invocation, Celestial Tongues, and Rites might have penalties or simply fail across transdimensional distances, while native abilities that are a function of how the celestial interacts with the Universe, like Resonances and Attunements, would work just fine.

And, as I always caveat, there's other documentation coming out about this... this is just how I think things would work best at the moment. :^)

09-04-2004, 03:05 AM	#1
DryaUnda Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: San Francisco	INfiltration(sic) Getting right into the topic, the In Nomine pocket multiverse has already gotten into the Infinite Worlds (or not, if I'm incorrect). I'm sure that some of you are familiar with the first bit of circumstantial evidence, the example pocket multiverse in 4e p.531. Earth, Heaven, Hell, In-between space. Next comes one of the worst weird parallels, The United States of Lizardia. "Surprise! Everything's the same, but people are all lizards!". Could this powerful example of bad comedy be a product of the boredom of Dark Humor? If the answer is no, then please tell me how this insult to allohistory could possibly exist? Lastly, and anticlimactically (maybe I should write scientific papers), are the known mythological beings. Infinity will probably find more elves and vampires based on modern mythology than modernized p'ca and other relatively obscure beings. As to how this is anticlimactic, the real reason could be simply due to faulty perception on the part of Infinity. This may be so many Homeline Echoes, and maybe one from Centrum, have been found. I'll conclude with a simple question: what else besides Kobal (and Eli, unless you really were going to give a different answer) has infiltrated the Infinite Worlds?

09-05-2004, 07:45 AM	#6
Archangel Beth In Nomine Line Editor Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Frozen Wastelands of NH	Re: INfiltration(sic) Quite frankly, if I were doing IN Infinite Worlds, I'd pitch the "pocket gods" out the window -- except maaaaaaybe for ethereals. Most ethereals, that is. Who knows what the Farthest Marches might contain, including Tethers to other timelines? Yves and Kronos get more overtly powerful -- if any PCs know about their Superiors' far-ranging interests -- but hey, they've been covertly powerful critters for a long time. It won't break anything to add that in. But the War would extend throughout all the possible areas, with celestials centered in one world-universe and not moving to other ones, typically, because it's too much of a nuisance for a Superior to keep putting Area Knowledge into their heads. (Or they might just keep their various world-organizations separate; see an angel you've never met? Maybe that's one assigned to some other world. See a demon waiting for a debriefing, in a weird form for an Impudite? Maybe it's from Lizardia... But you never get much time to chat.) Jean and Vapula also get much more powerful -- though you could do some interesting things if only Kronos and Yves knew about alternate worlds, until humans got close... Then Jean would probably be handed the next set of encyclopedias and told that someone was close, and Vapula would be trying to infiltrate his demons into places so that he could either steal the invention from the humans or get enough data to invent it first. Whichever Superior got it first would have a big advantage, and would be trying to keep the other one's influence away... (Mmm, sounds like a campaign, that does. Either one for (G)IN, or with poor humans finding out that in the middle of their political problems, there's a couple of supernatural factions waging a semi-covert war around them...) __________________ --Beth Shamelessly adding Superiors: Lilith, GURPS Sparrials, and her fiction page to her .sig (the latter is not precisely gaming related)

09-10-2004, 12:18 PM	#7
William Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Upper Peninsula of Michigan	Re: INfiltration(sic) Whee, IW discussion! (This is an area I'm trying to keep a very close eye on, because it has the possibility of upsetting some serious IN assumptions.) Here's the It's pretty important to me that God be trans-dimensional. There are a few ways this could be evidenced in an IN/IW game: first off, the IW section of the 4e book mentions "slumming angels," "reformed demons," and "retired godlings," which seem to map pretty well onto Outcasts, Renegades, and Ethereals... and it looks like their powers still work on Homeline, which slots them in as Cosmic instead of magic or psi. Cosmic, the pros point out, it for godlings, which is basically the category involved. The possibility that Ethereals' powers still work on Homeline would still allow just enough support for the Ethereal heresy that even a trans-dimensional God could have the Ethereals running around making their claims. Creators in other pocket multiverses? Demiurges. They may even think that they are Creators, and remember creating their dimensions, which is fine. Java would call them a constructor, but they were still "programmed" by God. Or, hey, maybe they're aspects of God! What does Yves recall about the Creation? If he remembers the Universe splitting into infinite timelines, he could have chosen a special one to inhabit as a focused being, there to do his work. But he knew someday he'd have to branch out.... Afterlives in other pocket multiverses? Powerful Domains in their local Marches, heavily reshaped by belief. Occasionally, souls might escape and head to the Higher Heavens or disband. Otherwise, as the local gods (Ethereals all) expect them to work. (And Uriel sticks his head downs Jacob's Ladder and yells, "I told you so!") Fate and Destiny: if all universes are linked at a fundamental level(a good interpretation of this would be that each timeline exists as in the potentiality of other timelines; Fate and Destiny certainly seem to resolve matters in this collection of potentials), it wouldn't matter significantly where an angel did his work, so much as that he continued to do his best to push for Destiny. If no one Universe can meet its Fate or Destiny without all Universes doing so and vice versa, it serves both God and Lucifer's purposes to focus as much resources as possible on one special universe. Until contact is made, at which point you can reap advantage in your home universe by working in others occasionally. The nature of souls: are doubles in other parallels the same soul? I've thought about this and figured that this would explain a number of things! Why do souls sometimes show up late at Hellmouth or the Pearly Gates, years after they died? They were waiting for their doubles to resolve their own lives! If each soul experiences other souls' choices as part of its own potentiality, each double suddenly becomes important, because their choices affect the possibilities other universes will make available to their doubles. At the end of their corporeal lives, some of the possibilities collapse (the souls in those universes disband), and the others move on to an afterlife. Experimental analysis with Divine Destiny and Fated Future might be able to confirm that no human soul ever meets Fate and not Destiny while another soul meets Destiny and not Fate (or at least never find an example of this occurring); at most, some doubles meet one or both, while others meet neither. Perhaps they recombine in the Higher Heavens or Lower Hells, perhaps not. It might be quite comforting to some people to suspect that disbandment in one Universe doesn't mean ultimate death for that soul. Is there a universe out there with a Lower Heavens still carrying an Archangel Raphael? Sure, why not. IN can play alternate-histories too. She could be a recognizeable "harmonic" on the same underlying soul. Though I would pin down that there is no Universe where Uriel is still around, or the Grigori are not Outcast, or someone other than Laurence is commanding the Hosts of Heaven. Some pronouncements made by God simply seem to be trans-universal -- good evidence for the cross-timeline-Creator hypothesis. Finally, some setting details. I expect Yves knows instinctively about other timelines, Kronos suspects or has verified, Jean has the tech (and projectors do work from the IN homeworld; or at the very least, relics and Songs can manage the trick), and Jean has been working like mad to make sure that human tech turns away from developments in the direction of parachronic tech, mostly to keep Vapula the Hell away from this. Once Vapula cracks it or external contact is made, though, he'll release the tech he's been sitting on. The natives from the IN world in Homeline and Centrum are pretty much accidental. It seems that pushing one timeline has subtle effects on the others, so the same restrictions on intervention are promulgated, and most celestials simply find that their best work is done at home, since onl indirect advantage can be obtained working elsewhere. All the usual powers work fine in other Universes; psi might work in the IN homeworld, while magic wouldn't seem to. Powers which require a link to a particular being, such as an Invocation, Celestial Tongues, and Rites might have penalties or simply fail across transdimensional distances, while native abilities that are a function of how the celestial interacts with the Universe, like Resonances and Attunements, would work just fine. And, as I always caveat, there's other documentation coming out about this... this is just how I think things would work best at the moment. :^)