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Old 01-24-2016, 08:09 PM   #1
kingofthenerdz3
 
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Default The Strangerverse in IW

The Strangerverse in the Alternate History forums started with the United States of Ameriwank.Its about a George Washington being supplied with technologies from a mysterious timetraveller from 2258.There is now a bunch of TLs where important people have been visited by the Stranger.How will this work in IW?
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Old 01-25-2016, 10:54 AM   #2
ericthered
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Default Re: The Strangerverse in IW

It all depends on how you treat the timelines he nudges off.

Were they echoes before, or were they alternates all along.

If there is only one timeline he effects, Infinity may wait to waylay him and steal his stuff ... or they'll do their best to wall it off and only ever send ISWAT teams there in case something goes very very wrong.
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Old 01-25-2016, 01:46 PM   #3
David Johnston2
 
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Default Re: The Strangerverse in IW

Quote:
Originally Posted by kingofthenerdz3 View Post
The Strangerverse in the Alternate History forums started with the United States of Ameriwank.Its about a George Washington being supplied with technologies from a mysterious timetraveller from 2258.There is now a bunch of TLs where important people have been visited by the Stranger.How will this work in IW?
From Infinity's point of view they'd discover some of those worlds with evidence that at some point in their past a worldjumper who claimed to be a time traveller introduced anachronistic elements and created a divergence. If real time travel exists, Infinity doesn't believe in it since any evidence of time travel is consistent with world-jumping.
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Old 01-25-2016, 03:24 PM   #4
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Default Re: The Strangerverse in IW

Infinity flags worlds like these in the same category as worlds where oddly obviously supernatural elements control the population:

Put a red flag on it and do your best to never alert the entity to your position.

Look at it from infinities perspective:

1. Some sort of powerful supernatural/technologically advanced entity with its own world jumping abilities that PREDATES infinity, either has an extremely long lifespan, or comes from a slow time world, and has access to higher technology, has chosen to play on this world- the disaster that could happen if they **** it off are immense (micro-nukes to homeline ahoy!).

2. Its an actual time traveler, which means it actually has the ability to UNDO things. If it got the secrets of transworld travel and started participating in the battle for worlds it would by have a significant advantage (I will give Hitler the bomb, hey once he nuked the US that moved the world up one quantum, I'll just assassinate hitler the day after I gave him the bomb and replace him with a clone that hates the bomb, then I'll try giving it to Japan, nope, Canada? Hey got it down down two quantums just like I wanted!)

3. Its some sort of world bound super-powered entity or aliens disguising there actions as time travel.

In any of the above situations you don't know ALL the powers the 'stranger' has, or its true moativations- Can it read or control minds, does it have a spy network? Are the agents who landed on that world compromised?
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Old 01-25-2016, 03:47 PM   #5
Fred Brackin
 
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Default Re: The Strangerverse in IW

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Originally Posted by kingofthenerdz3 View Post
The Strangerverse in the Alternate History forums started with the United States of Ameriwank.Its about a George Washington being supplied with technologies from a mysterious timetraveller from 2258.There is now a bunch of TLs where important people have been visited by the Stranger.How will this work in IW?
Note that a world with a Gregorian calendar date of 2258 has never been discover by Infinity (or Centrum) and there are theoretical reasons why it either wouldn't exist of at least not be reachable by Infinity or Centrum.

Even if they find it they probably treat it like Caliph.

This is basically like a tactical nuclear landmine. You'd leave it completely alone if you weren't worried about he other side setting it off. you mostly keep watching it to make sure that the other side (or somebody wore like Reich-5) doesn't set it off.

There are a lot of timelines that get this sort of "land mine" status and precedents and procedures are well-established.

The Stranger gets classified as a Parachronozoid of maximum potential threat. Infinity knows and worries about other beings that might merit such a status (or higher if they believe Prof. Headley)..

Infinity has a lot of things to worry about. I don't know if there's officially an "Office of Potential Parachronic Disasters" but there are people who unofficially have such a portfolio.
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Old 01-25-2016, 11:00 PM   #6
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Default Re: The Strangerverse in IW

Depending on which one of the many Strangerverses they encountered and when, they might highjack it. At bottom, the Stranger gives a set of ultratech devices to a (typically) TL5 culture in a non-public venue and then buggers off; since the farthest forward one I remember was Vladimir Lenin, that puts "him" in the category of 'last seen over a century ago and may not have existed at all, from Infinity's perspective'. There's a professional paranoid in a basement office somewhere worried about him but not more than that.

What matters is the chain of custody of the devices. In the (imho) well-written Strangerverses it comes apart; even when given to democratic libertarians or liberal capitalist empires, the simple fact is that these devices cannot be reproduced and are few in number, so whoever controls them tends to become authoritarian regardless of their starting point. The secret may be kept for a generation or two but not forever. Heirs raised to power do not share the worldview of their parents or their historical counterparts. Factions form and the second or third generation of the cabal tears itself apart bloodily. Maybe the rift is healed. Maybe not.

What Infinity actually finds, in a Strangerverse, is a world with a few teleporters, transmuters and mind-control rings in the hands of its ruling class. Forget the history and culture for a moment; send in the Crosstime Muggers (or the Swagmen!) and steal those things. Impersonate the Stranger if you like. See how the local elites fare when their toys are taken away.

I'd tie them all into a skerry myself. The Stranger who created the skerry - especially if the computer history he gave matches Homeline's to 1995 - is interesting but you'd have to fill in a lot of details deliberately left out to make them an antagonist or even a major plot device.
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Old 01-26-2016, 01:53 PM   #7
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since the farthest forward one I remember was Vladimir Lenin, that puts "him" in the category of 'last seen over a century ago and may not have existed at all, .
Uh uh. Of known worlds only Centrum and Shikaku-mon have exactly the same date as Homeline. All others have dates earlier on the calendar. There's little problem in finding one where Lenin is still alive.
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Old 01-26-2016, 07:33 PM   #8
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Default Re: The Strangerverse in IW

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Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
Note that a world with a Gregorian calendar date of 2258 has never been discover by Infinity (or Centrum) and there are theoretical reasons why it either wouldn't exist of at least not be reachable by Infinity or Centrum.
...
The only way to get around that is to have their date be cultural rather than astronomical as Homeline defines it.
That would adjust things like natural disasters times. The 1906 California earthquake would happen in their year 2200, for example.
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Old 01-27-2016, 01:22 PM   #9
Fred Brackin
 
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Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
The only way to get around that is to have their date be cultural rather than astronomical as Homeline defines it.
That would adjust things like natural disasters times. The 1906 California earthquake would happen in their year 2200, for example.
You mean "not use the Gregorian calendar tat I specified"?
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Old 01-27-2016, 02:59 PM   #10
David Johnston2
 
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Default Re: The Strangerverse in IW

There is another perfectly feasible solution. The Stranger is a liar. He doesn't want his experimental subjects to know about alternate universe so he explains his advanced technology by claiming he's from the future. Of course given that the point of doing it is to screw with history to see what happens, he has to be either an actual timetraveller or just long lived enough that he can see the results play out.

Last edited by David Johnston2; 01-27-2016 at 05:01 PM.
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