[IW] Ordinary Worlds with valuables!

[cptbutton]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

All those kinds of things specifically requires unmodified echoes and not just really close parallels. You also have to find people that care about the exact times those echoes comprise.
It would be fun to prove so many marriage based genealogies false. Infidelity is far too common to ever trust lineage more than a generation or two, and often not even then without D.N.A. corroboration.

I predict all sorts of fun in the scandal sheets once walk-by geneanalysis becomes feasible. But that is off topic.

Dragging it back on-topic: Will anyone want to grab people or samples from alternates or echoes so you can get back the lost royal line? King Ralph crosstime style?

[Drifter]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

All those kinds of things specifically requires unmodified echoes and not just really close parallels. You also have to find people that care about the exact times those echoes comprise.
It would be fun to prove so many marriage based genealogies false. Infidelity is far too common to ever trust lineage more than a generation or two, and often not even then without D.N.A. corroboration.

I can see a Sam Spade type of adventure, with down-and-out ex-Patrol agents hired to get evidence that so-and-so's genealogy was fake, and great great great grandma was seeing the milk man on the side.

But I can't think of why this would be valuable, or why keeping that info quiet would be valuable. At least to Homeliners. It couldn't be inheritance issues. Or hereditary titles - it might be inconvenient, but not worth plugging some flatfoot shamus over.

[Flyndaran]

Not everyone with something you want like money are home liners.
Your investor/payer doesn't have to know how and where you get your information.
People on World X could give you the evidence you need for someone on World Y.
Evidence itself may say one thing assuming you know of alternates but something quite else if you don't.

Scandals rarely have much to do with rationality. The sins of the father are often meted out on the son even today; guilt by association and all that.

It might matter even more to bigots as a way to power play within their group. Prove that head mucky muck is really part ethnicity X and his rival would pay big money.
You can't tell me that Homeline lacks bigots. That would be less realistic than Quantum Conveyance. ;)

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by cptbutton

I predict all sorts of fun in the scandal sheets once walk-by geneanalysis becomes feasible. But that is off topic.

Dragging it back on-topic: Will anyone want to grab people or samples from alternates or echoes so you can get back the lost royal line? King Ralph crosstime style?

Is valuable information really off topic?

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by ericthered

I recently read Guns, Germs and Steel, and realized one of the great things you could get from a TL1 or TL0 far parallel is alternate crops: a strain of wheat that doesn't exist on other worlds. This won't be something you keep trading and trading, but something you pull out once and then plant on home-line or even just grow on a colony world. Then you do a whole bunch of lab work on breeding it in with existing strains and modifying it to be competitive with modern wheat. And then you send it back to the world it came from in its new and improved state and get a tax write-off for humanitarian effort! (just joking about the last one).

The 'Organic Foods' movement will also pay good money for early versions of classic crops.

Great call, also foods that taste unlike anything else around because slightly different plants were domestocated.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Drifter

But I can't think of why this would be valuable, or why keeping that info quiet would be valuable. At least to Homeliners. It couldn't be inheritance issues. Or hereditary titles - it might be inconvenient, but not worth plugging some flatfoot shamus over.

That depends on how much the alternate heirs want the hereditary title, which is after all a fairly irrational thing to be concerned about in the first place in a society like Homeline where they don't matter much.

It is true it largely doesn't matter for inherited property other than entailed stuff like titles - pretty much everybody's law lately says property passes by will anyway, and the children of your wife are legally your children unless you personally bring the case to prove otherwise, and sometimes even then.

But honestly, there are still are scandals about this sort of thing. Yeah they tend to be pretty short term and a lot of people laugh over them, but enough people do care that it can definitely be worth the (not all that large amount of) money in a close election. Or when the circulation of your tabloid magazine needs boost this month to keep your ad rates up.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Great call, also foods that taste unlike anything else around because slightly different plants were domestocated.

Or just slightly different varieties were commercialized. A lot of crops have legacy varieties that are noticeably different. And for a lot of crops the commercial varieties are essentially lucky mutants or crossbreeds - seedless anything for example, but often others too. Basically every variety of apple that isn't too sour to eat is a lucky accident of this sort. Somebody out there might very well have a seedless apple clone that isn't inedible.

[Drifter]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Not everyone with something you want like money are home liners.
Your investor/payer doesn't have to know how and where you get your information.
People on World X could give you the evidence you need for someone on World Y.
Evidence itself may say one thing assuming you know of alternates but something quite else if you don't.

Scandals rarely have much to do with rationality. The sins of the father are often meted out on the son even today; guilt by association and all that.

It might matter even more to bigots as a way to power play within their group. Prove that head mucky muck is really part ethnicity X and his rival would pay big money.
You can't tell me that Homeline lacks bigots. That would be less realistic than Quantum Conveyance. ;)

I don't think Homeline lacks bigots, but is the leader of the KKK going to loose THAT much if we all find out his greatX3 grandfather was African-American? The reason I don't think it would work that effectively in Homeline isn't because there aren't racists, in fact there are plenty. But society overall has to be so racist that just a 'taint' of the wrong blood could destroy your career - thankfully I think we're over that. Hmm, that might work in reverse - instead of him trying to hide the bad blood, or lose standing because of it, it might be used to mollify his racist stance, make him understand race isn't all that important. That might be worth something :)

Then again this could be a "yeech" of a campaign idea, probably more for an NPC. A down and out ex-Patrolman that combs echos of timelines like Dixie or Reich-5. He gets photos that some Southern Senator is an octoroon, and blackmails him. I don't know if that makes the private eye a scum bag or just taking advantage of scumbags. I like to think both, if he is only out for money.

While that could lead to personal riches, OR it could be part of a campaign by the Patrol or Centrum agents to get leverage if you want to put a "good' spin on this.

[Astromancer]

Try this idea, selling to other worlds. Go to a world where the local year is 1943, the Nazis are on the ropes, and Paul McCartney was never born and offer "Yesterday for sale. That song was a bigger hit with the WWII generation than it was with the sixties kids (and it was a megahit with them). Repeat freely with many other popular songs. Amass a fortune. Buy valuables that would sell well on Homeline. Repeat as needed.

[combatmedic]

This one may not qualify, since it's more about visiting the place to obtain a good or service, rather than removing/stealing a valuable object.




(NEEDS NAME)


1898 A.D.

The timeline shows minor differences from Homeline’s late 19th Century historical records, but other tracks closely with what is known about that period. Homeline historians working on the history of European colonialism often come here to compare notes.

Quite by accident, two hungry interns from a research team working in Léopoldville, Congo Free States, stumbled across the best little restaurant in town. They loved the food so much they brought some back. But they declined sharing it with their dorm mates, because it was an endangered species, they said, and that’s unethical.

Word got around and less ethically correct people with very fine palates and deep pockets started making trips to Léopoldville on the Kongo timeline. There they dined and partied with adventurers, demimondaines, bohemians, big game hunters, and other colorful—if seedy—clients.

Schmidt’s doesn’t look like much from the outside; dingy clapboard in need of a white wash, half-naked jungle tribesmen lounging and smoking out front with prangas set across their knees. A bill posted by the entrance reads: Réservé aux Blancs. Inside, the visitor finds a classy, well-appointed eatery that would fit in just fine in Brussels if one ignores the shifty-eyed half-castes serving the tables. A faded daguerreotype over the bar depicting a much younger and slimmer version of the eponymous proprietor. M. Schmidt spends most of his time behind the closely-guarded kitchen doors, cooking up mouth-watering combinations of European and African dishes, with a selection of bush meat of all kinds.

All kinds.

Registered members of the club may dine in the private rooms and order from the special menu.

The owner maintains excellent connections with FP men and certain Congo Company officials.

Since Schmidt’s opened three years ago, disappearances among the local noirs have increased. Some people say the Force Publique took them away to work in the rubber forests.
Other people know better.


Infinity note: A corrupt White Star Trade agent knows what's on the full menu, but he's accepting bribes from Schmidt (who thinks the mam is a Belgian official.)
The sadistic agent always takes a little gold to maintain the illusion of bureaucratic penury. But the real pay off is that Schmidt lets him "tenderize" the women and girls before they go into the pot.