Alternate Earths 3, What Worlds? (hypothetical)

[flyingwombat]

Originally Posted by Qoltar

World without the Americas?

Already been done - at leaast in paperback books . - E.W. Charlton

Don't know about that one, but one of the "Blade" books about British spy who goes on world-hopping missions had him land in an England, except England and Franc (at least) was ruled by an emperor, which was at war with a continental power, and the land mass of the western hemisphere was replaced by islands -- and a larger Eurasian continent.

Anyway...

The submerisible fighter plane in Sky Captain etc was not a P-51, but a P-40. The mad scientist was German. But if you want to make those minor changes... go for it!

And, At the end description for caliph, it says see AE 2 for further details. For me that means interstellar travel is in!

Anyway... (again)
I like the idea of a full write on Cyrano. Can't wait.
And a right up of Lucifer-5. I think alternate NPC profiles from historical homeliners would be interesting. For example, the new German space cruiser is commanded by Captain Karl Doenitz with Lieutenant Commander Rommel as his chief engineer.


Here's mine:

Philly with everything: The Philadelphia experiment was real and successful. So successful it brings upon on very quick end to WWII -- With US troops suddenly materializing in front of the Reichschancellory of at the Imperial palace in Tokyo, you bet it's over bub. Postwar development of "the hopper" leads to rapid exploration/exploitation of the solar system. By 1960 instellar exploration begins.

There are others... but it's late... <yawn>

[Almafeta]

Originally Posted by Ed the Coastie

Not that they would wind up in AE3, but I just couldn't resist...

Kromm-1: A world nearly identical to Homeline, except that a Canadian physicist named Sean Punch had a long and fulfilling career and never got involved in the RPG industry.

Kromm-2: Even more similar to Homeline than Kromm-1, except that Punch does get involved in the RPG industry and successfully emigrates to Texas.

Which begs the question: How does the RPG industry benefit in Homeline? Do they effectively have an infinite number of playtesters, since Homeline doesn't respect copyrights of other worlds? Does Homeline's version of GURPS Space have literally hundreds of off-world copies that they can compile and merge into one unified version?

Some more less-than-serious suggestions:

Dragonless: Richard Garfield dies young due to pneumonia, which means that Wizards of the Coast never buy Magic: the Gathering. Without WoTC to back it, TSR dies in the late 90s and auctions off its assets to the highest bidders, leaving three companies in a "mexican standoff," which like the video game industry, always has three struggling to be #1: Palladium (bought and integrated AD&D and most of its settings), White Wolf (bought Birthright, Planescape, and Ravenloft, which now use the Storyteller system), and Steve Jackson Games (bought Alternity and its settings, and Gamma World, which except for Gamma World, now are powered by GURPS).

Grognard-2: Mark Twain invents role-playing at the same H. G. wells invents wargaming; "It's better than what they're feeding us on the radio." With the two industries able to rebound ideas off each other, they take off and become a permanant part of Anglophone culture, surely as poetry, novels, music, and games. J. R. R. Tolkien is known as the "Father of Roleplaying" due to his seminal "Middle Earth" roleplaying game, but is regularly criticized for his heavy-handed use of metaplot.

Skywalker-4: J. R. R. Tolkien creates the "Middle Star" series of books, a high-flying space opera with surprisingly detailed cultures and futuristic but plausible technologies. Inspiring a generation, this technology (or its closest real-world equivalent) quickly comes about, making rocket travel and "jet packs" reliable, cheap, and ubiquitous. In the 70s, Gary Gygax modifies a starship combat game's rules to "flesh out" the stats for the pilots. With a few more rules, pilots can leave their ships for the first time. Starships & Saucers becomes the first roleplaying game, and the roleplaying industry develops based on the "bridge crew" model.

[Almafeta]

While I'm thinking about it, a site that has been previously linked to in Illuminator: Other timelines

Originally Posted by kelly_pedersen

Not to be rude, but do you have a citation for this?

Unfortunately, no. I read this two months ago in one of the scientific journals my college's library keeps, and they only keep the current month of issues.

[Tom Kalbfus]

One Alternate that shouldn't be overlooked is Ice Age, a world where civilization never arrived - That is until the Parachronic travellers got here. There are two approaches Infinity Unlimited can take to an Ice Age Parallel, either they keep a low profile and study it, or they open it up for colonization and then the colonists will have to deal with the stone age natives, which perhaps don't stay stone age for very long. Basically it becomes "Cowboys and Indians" with Very Modern "cowboys" and stone age and perhaps some Neanderthal "Indians" There are many sorts of precivilized alternates, some of them don't have fully evolved humans in them and some do, its an open question which ones should be colonized.

A parallel with no humans (Dinosaurs) for example are open to colonization, but they present no intelligent opponents for the pioneers except other pioneers.

At the other end of the scale are Post Appocalyptic parallels, in these civilization got an early start and then destroyed itself.

One can also have a Traveller-like Parallel called Roma Imperium where the Roman Empire built an Interstellar civilization.

Another more troublesome alternate would be called Para Roma a teched up Roman Empire with Parachronic travel

[Tom Kalbfus]

What if you had a parallel where the zero-point level for strength was 11 for women and 10 for men? In other words when you create a native female character you alter the GURPS rules slightly for women. a zero-point woman character would have the following attributes before points were spent on attributes skills and advantages:
Women
ST 11 [0] DX 10 [0] IQ 10 [0] HT 10 [0]
HP 11 [0] Will 10 [0] Per 10 [0] FP 10 [0]

And the attributes for men are:
Men
ST 10 [0] DX 10 [0] IQ 10 [0] HT 10 [0]
HP 10 [0] Will 10 [0] Per 10 [0] FP 10 [0]

and character creation from that point on follows the GURPS rule book in everything else

Lets also stipulate that this alternate's date is the same as on homeline.
Now women were like this in this alternate from since before recorded history.

The question is, how would this affect recorded history if you assumed women were physically stronger than men on average instead of weaker?

Would women have a different role in society?

They would still be mothers and bear children, but how would greater strength affect their role in history? Would their be more Queens and female soldiers, or would things remain the same as in our world?

Lets call this Alternate Gynarch

How would Infinity Unlimited approach this world, other than this small difference the men of homeline look like the men of Gynarch, the women of Gynarch are somewhat taller than average than then men of Homeline and Gynarch and the Women of Homeline look somewhat dwarfish in comparison to the Women of Gynarch, although not outside the human average for that world. Female Homeliners might be mistaken for 14 year old women of Gynarch if they are in their twenties.

[vitruvian]

a zero-point woman character would have the following attributes before points were spent on attributes skills and advantages:

That wouldn't be a 0-point woman, that would just mean that the 'racial' template for women included +1 ST [10]. The general rule for characters and templates in GURPS is It Costs What It Costs.

As for the effects on history if humans were sexually dimorphic in this way, I'm not sure it would necessarily have that huge an effect in itself; but human nature would probably be somewhat different in general, depending on the exact reason humans evolved in this way.

I suppose there are multiple reasons that ancestral hominids could have developed sexual dimorphism favoring females in strength and size, but two occur to me at the moment, both having to do with reproduction and parenting:

1) Women could evolve to be generally larger in order to ease the birthing process, their hips being proportionally wider in comparison to the Homo line's freakishly large skulls at birth. If the average woman has just a couple centimeters more 'clearance', it might even allow an even longer gestation period, say 10 months instead of 9.

2) Women could evolve to be larger in comparison to males in response to competitive behavior on the part of the males; i.e., if males are in the habit of trying to kill or displace the children of other males so they can father or reserve resources for their own kids, females might need to be big and strong in order to protect *all* of their offspring. This could point to a mix of human mating behaviors more greatly favoring *female* polygamy (one female, multiple males) and group marriages, although there would probably still be monogamy and even male polygamy still within the range of normal variation. One might also expect matrilineal inheritance and/or maternal uncles taking on a paternal role, as occurs in some real-world cultures.

So, yes, I could see a greater prevalence of female leaders, although given the greater relative value of females to continuation of the genome, probably not *too* much greater direct involvement in warfare.

[Tom Kalbfus]

So in the World of Gynarch, men would be more violent and Warlike, and in reaction to this women tend to be bigger and stronger. Maybe the form of government would be less democratic, while men would be considered expendable and used as cannon fodder in the various conflicts that occur. If its a TL8 world, then either it has one world Empire or its more likely to have distroyed civilization with nuclear weapons. Sounds like a potentially hazardous Alternate for Infinity Unlimited Agents to venture into.

[Tom Kalbfus]

Lets say that Gynarch's males are so much different from Homeline's men as the fact that the Females of this world have heightened pherimone levels, and these affect all men, both Homeline's and Gynarch's. The pherimones rase the attractiveness level for all females for all men. In otherwords, A woman with an average appearance has her attractiveness level raised one step for males, and she is effective Attractive to men where they are affected by the pherimones. The pherimones cause men to find al women in the area more attractive, not just the Gynarch women who emit the extra pherimones. The pherimones also make men more aggressive,more compedative with each other. The pherimones also give all males who are effected the Berserk Disadvantage while so influenced. For the purpose of the effects of this pherimone all females who aren't actively hostile to the male character is treated as if she were a "loved one".

[vitruvian]

So in the World of Gynarch, men would be more violent and Warlike, and in reaction to this women tend to be bigger and stronger.

Not necessarily. Just because I posit the sexual dimorphism as a response to a violent (kill other males' kids) strategy on the part of ancestral males, does NOT necessarily imply that males are inherently more violent in every respect than in our timeline and species. In fact, as the balance of power shifted towards bigger, stronger females, and societies grew up around structures in which multiple males attended to one female or were perhaps even traded around, with paternity not mattering too much (except for the matriarchs to track as a check against inbreeding) and maternal uncles taking on much of the caregiver role, things might actually end up more peaceful by the time civilization is developed.

On the other hand, there could be problems with developing our traditional means of diplomacy and peacemaking, if husband-wife bonds are of less importance economically and politically. It's hard to tell how things would play out.

[Fabricati]

THis discussion, actually, makes me think of something else- namely, a society in which a female has to kill in order to be considered worthy to bear children.

Call the much more advanced civilization, which has since discarded the blood of the meme, though not necessarily the jist Mantis-1.

Prolly won't bee all that different, but it certainly sounds like a fun idea.