Catalog of the Weird Parallels

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by ericthered

They would, if they weren't immediately contacted by sleeper agents who claim to work for them and know WAY too much to be left alone.

Some are lying, others deluded with powers of information, and maybe still others come from an alternate Homeline/Centrum.

This world could be a final test of agents' resistance to dimensional nuttery. Or punishment for those too prone to Machiavellian activities.
"I have the perfect assignment for your skills."

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by PTTG

Infiltrator

This worldline looks like normal 1980 Homeline. It is, in fact, under siege by an alien force: the Greys. And the Cabal. Also, Homeline and Centrum. Additionally, four different cryptofascist groups, two other alien empires, a group of determined ideological communists, anti-government anarchists, nine different cults, the Illuminati, and of course every major governments is busy infiltrating every other government. Most corporations are either shell companies or are semi-legitimate fronts for other shell companies.

All told, 40% of the population is at least a single-agent. a further 5% are double-agents of some kind (in some cases working against their masters for the opposing side, and in other cases having two parallel masters, such as a lizardman CIA agent infiltrating the Soviets.

Yet somehow the world keeps rolling on just fine. Nobody really understands how this is possible. Even especially strong inertia shouldn't be able to hold this worldline together.

This parallel is also known as TARBABY and FLYPAPER because no one can ever fully detach their group/government/junta from this place's weirdo politics.

[Astromancer]

One good weird parallel might be the return of the Fairies. Play it for weirdness. A Tiger Phooka running for president. Water Fay demanding to compete in the Olympics. Leprechaun tax revolts.

The silliness can be made sinister in several ways.

By the way, the film Daybreakers gives a similar idea with vamps (Starbucks sells blood.) The movie is action/horror with goofy bits, the dials can be turned in several different ways.

[PTTG]

I like the idea. A modern, no-mana worldline that's home to humans and elves comes to mind.

A spacecraft might have crashed on Earth a few centuries ago, stranding several thousand Grey aliens.

Or subterranian Morlock-like creatures are discovered in the midst of WWII. With the right setup, this effectively turns into a weird war two game, perhaps with Nazis harnessing these new slaves, but there are alternatives.

[KarlKost]

Wild Hunt - Hell Parallel

Humanity were developing beyond imagination. The colonization of Mars had just started, the first AIs were built.

And that tech, allowed to goverments to better look at their citizens... And what they found out scared the he'll out of them.

Vampires. Yes. Vampires lived hidden amoung the civilians.

The Men In Black were sent to dispose of that menace.

But they failed.

The vampires, facing a hunt beyond anything before, got desparate.

And, in their despair, their elders decided that, in the point humanity were, their only option to survive would be an all out war.

So, the heroes among the vampiric society started the war of the Darkness on the year of 2103. Entire cities were turned overnight into hungry cannibals.

Most of the vampires that had lived for thousands of years were decimated. The war was costly to vampires.

But, for the humans, it costed the lives of billions.

Now, humanity live in few medium sized fortified towns.

Vampires live in caves, were a few dozens or at most a few hundreds vampires keeps some hundreds or even thousands of humans as slaves and as recruits as needed.

At night, humanity tremble in fear and hide. At day, its time to hunt.

[KarlKost]

Barbie and Ken

In this world, all the women is named Barbie, and all the men is Ken. Besides that, everybody is physically EXACTLY the same. The people aren't clones (althouth the science of genetics is something NEVER tought about, because hereditary is an alien concept to people from this world), but all girls that are born looks EXACTLY as all other girls in the planet, and the same for the boys.

Althouth racism is totally non existant in this world (because there is no different "races"), several other types of prejudices are far common, on many cases even far more than in Homeland. As people try to set themselves as unique, people from this world seem to take a deep effort to have unique personality traits. So, to outsiders, this people look borderline schizofreniac... And probably they are. People are either insanely xenophobic or obssescive xenophilic, abhoring all foreigner influence or fully absorving it. This need to stand makes all people into inconstant excentrics... to the people that the few "normal" ones seem weird themselves.

[David Johnston2]

Chaos: This is a world of Ultra-High Mana. Meaning that magic just...happens in most of it. The ground warps as Shape Earth Spells ripple across it, Illusions play out scenes of long ago times before the world went totally mad, the air sometimes erupts in spontaneous fire or veils of darkness, dead bodies rise again as undead or something as once again live. For the most part the only people who dare the wilds are those who have magic resistance, either naturally or via protective amulets while most of humanity lives in safe zones where the magic is down to merely Very High or High.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Chaos: This is a world of Ultra-High Mana. Meaning that magic just...happens in most of it. The ground warps as Shape Earth Spells ripple across it, Illusions play out scenes of long ago times before the world went totally mad, the air sometimes erupts in spontaneous fire or veils of darkness, dead bodies rise again as undead or something as once again live. For the most part the only people who dare the wilds are those who have magic resistance, either naturally or via protective amulets while most of humanity lives in safe zones where the magic is down to merely Very High or High.

John Biles had a similar concept in his Sailor Moon Z fanfic, called Toxic Mana. By any name, it's a concept that could be interesting to explore.

Evolution being what it is, there would possibly be life-forms that can survive, or even thrive, in such an environment. I have to wonder what they'd be like, and how they'd react to lower mana levels (sure, the ones who just have high magic resistance would be fine, but that's not the only option).

[Culture20]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

John Biles had a similar concept in his Sailor Moon Z fanfic, called Toxic Mana. By any name, it's a concept that could be interesting to explore.

Evolution being what it is, there would possibly be life-forms that can survive, or even thrive, in such an environment. I have to wonder what they'd be like, and how they'd react to lower mana levels (sure, the ones who just have high magic resistance would be fine, but that's not the only option).

I'm guessing they'd be prescient or at least have danger sense. Some might migrate to better (future) climates by space/time warp, others might actively counteract the magical effects (ice for fire, fire for forest super-growth), and others yet might adapt themselves to the new magic as it passes. And there's the numbers game; some might just be so fecund that they survive as a species despite dying by the billions every day.
The stable societies might be centered around creatures that adapted to reduce mana levels as negative mana-enhancers.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by KarlKost

So, to outsiders, this people look borderline schizofreniac... And probably they are.

This is actually a pretty common trap for Alternate Earths writeups, deciding that because something is important to us, its a universal, and lacking it is extremely serious. You don't feel any insane need to make yourself unique because you have the same number of limbs as everybody else do you? For this population, appearance is just another one of those things. They're perfectly capable of having races (and an understanding of heredity, assuming it actually works on this world) based on something other than what people happen to look like.

That aside, it makes no sense for a culture where people don't look physically different that somehow managed to consider that issue anyway to compensate by making themselves *mentally* weird. If they're bothered by physical similarity, they'll do things to alter that. I'd expect universal tribal tattooing or skull reshaping or something, not schizophrenia.