[IW] Timeline Breakout Scenario

[AlexanderHowl]

A corporation in a TL8 timeline manages to create a conveyor while engaging in computer research and quickly sets up facilities on dozens of uninhabited timelines. Infinity does not discover the breakout until the corporation dominates the extraction industries of its timeline. What does Infinity do against a corporation worth trillions of dollars on its timeline and which possesses hundreds of conveyors?

[(E)]

Buying into the corporation to gain a measure of influence, intelligence and control would be the first step. The perfect end result would be if it could become a fully controlled subsidiary.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

A corporation in a TL8 timeline manages to create a conveyor while engaging in computer research and quickly sets up facilities on dozens of uninhabited timelines. Infinity does not discover the breakout until the corporation dominates the extraction industries of its timeline. What does Infinity do against a corporation worth trillions of dollars on its timeline and which possesses hundreds of conveyors?

Why would Infinity do anything against it? Look, Infinity tries to nip potential threats in the bud because that makes their lives simpler. But the idea is to avoid more war, not to start them. If they ran into such a corporation, given that it isn't doing anything Infinity would object to, they'd react by doing business with it.

Of course such a corporation would discover many dozens of inhabited worlds for each uninhabited world it could colonize.

[AlexanderHowl]

Interesting point, though I would suggest that there are probably hundreds of uninhabited parallels for every inhabited parallel. While Infinity and Centrum together have only discovered 841 parallel Earths across eight Quantums by 2027, there are potentially an infinite number of parallel Earths across each Quantum. Infinity and Centrum probably have not been able to reach the other parallels because of the expense required to calculate successful coordinates.

Another parallel, working from a different origin point, would probably discover completely different parallels than either Infinity or Centrum, as the likelihood of finding the same parallels would be infinitesimal. Infinity and Centrum seem to operate by similar paratronic laws, so they seem to have been forced into the same group of easily accessible parallel Earths. Of course, the likelihood of Infinity or Centrum stumbling upon another paratronic civilization, even if it could only develop conveyors, would also be infinitesimal, though potential conflicts usually make better stories than missed contacts.

[Flyndaran]

The number of accessible parallels is very much an unstated GM call.
Personally, I don't like infinity, because it all but makes the entire thing pointless. It's too kitchen sink for a coherent campaign, IMO. At any moment, literally anything and anyone can happen, so why try?

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Interesting point, though I would suggest that there are probably hundreds of uninhabited parallels for every inhabited parallel. .

Uh-hunh. Why?

[Flyndaran]

Humans are very low probability. For the majority of worlds to have us would indicate a vast self selecting partitioning of the available parallels. That would make for an interesting story arc in itself, but not necessarily what every gamer wants.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Humans are very low probability. .

That entirely depends on where the point of divergence is. (And honestly it's open to question just how low probability some kind of social advanced tool maker is.). Of course considerations of probability don't really apply to a setting that has echoes, myth parallels and a slew of worlds where the Third Reich won. I wonder, what would they call a world where the Third Reich lost, but the Japanese Empire conquered China and North America?

[Flyndaran]

With over 13 billion years of history, suggesting that the vast majority of universes diverge from ours only within the last couple thousand years would need some kind of very strong pseudoscientific justification.

[Tyneras]

Given the number of "Great Filters" that we have passed through that could not only prevent humans, but life itself from arising, there's a good chance that vast majority of Earths are dead rock balls.

Season your setting with justification for why this is not that case to taste. Maybe excessively similar worlds tend to collapse into a single timeline, so even if 99.999% of all timelines have no life, they condense into a single lifeless timeline on each quantum.