Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 10-29-2012, 12:54 AM   #11
jeff_wilson
Computer Scientist
 
jeff_wilson's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Dallas, Texas
Default Re: PT-41

Quote:
Originally Posted by tbrock1031 View Post
Which begs the question: where did it go?
http://begthequestion.info/


Lots of stuff just plain gets destroyed in a Banestorm.
__________________
.
Reposed playtest leader.

The Campaigns of William Stoddard
jeff_wilson is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-29-2012, 05:55 AM   #12
Flyndaran
Untagged
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
Default Re: PT-41

Quote:
Originally Posted by tbrock1031 View Post
Which begs the question: where did it go?
Obviously, 1984

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phi...ent_%28film%29
__________________
Beware, poor communication skills. No offense intended. If offended, it just means that I failed my writing skill check.
Flyndaran is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-29-2012, 04:01 PM   #13
oldgringo2001
 
oldgringo2001's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Silicon Valley
Default Re: PT-41

Because of the temporal anomaly (which is seems only relative to other parallels) Infinity hasn't been able to send in any additional agents until a couple of weeks ago, when PT-41 re-appeared in an accessible quantum. There weren't that many agents-in-place before them. What Infinity does have now is the intelligence gathered by its people stranded in this parallel for the better part of three subjective years. The survivors of this group (a few have been killed or died by misadventure) have not uncovered any Centran agents they had not identified before the timeline shift.

No one from Infinity has re-checked the mana levels here. Psionics seem to work normally, but there are no native-born psis, at least officially. If the Manhattan Project is working "normally," Infinity has six months to determine whether or not the Trinity test shot will result in another Merlin transformation.

Since this is no longer a historical echo, there will be immense pressures from within and from outside of Infinity to Do Something to alleviate at least some of the horrors of our 1945. Some of those horrors:
  • Dresden raids (February)
  • Fire Raids on Japanese cities (beginning in March)
  • Sinking of William Gustloff and other refugee ships in the Baltic.
  • Nuclear attacks on cities from August onward.
  • Forcible repatriation of Soviet prisoners-of-war (many are executed or sent to the Gulag.)

Note that there's nothing on this list involving the Holocaust. There are several reasons for this. First, historically, the Nazi death industry has accomplished most of its mission by now. Second, what is to be done with the holocaust survivors? Homeline Israel will, of course, want to establish a Jewish State here to receive most of the survivors. The only realistic alternative for the survivors is opening up immigration to the United States and the Commonwealth nations, and that simply is not going to happen soon enough without taking over their governments.

Infinity doesn't see any easy solution. Moving a million or more refugees crosstime will inevitably compromise the Secret on PT-41, and where would they go? Homeline Israel will want to settle many of them in territory under their control on Homeline, once again crushing Palestinian hopes of regaining at least partial control of their country through the cradle and the ballot box. Any adventures involving this should feature plenty of moral ambiguity. Tragic love affairs would be entirely appropriate as well.
oldgringo2001 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-29-2012, 04:23 PM   #14
oldgringo2001
 
oldgringo2001's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Silicon Valley
Default Re: PT-41

Centrum's Secret Plan!

GURPS Infinite Worlds revealed that Centrum's Military Service has proposed a plan to win the war with Secundus by moving troops and conveyors into an echo and then deliberately shifting it to Band Minus Three (Quantum Five) . What if that echo is PT-41, an echo Centran parachronicists determined was predisposed to shift into Homeline's quantum?

Well, if it is the chosen base, either the great invasion is just about to happen, or Centrum hadn't transferred most of the necessary forces to the PT-41 world before the shift took place. I'm going to assume that this is the case, and that there aren't that many MS people on PT-41. However, those Military Service are all quite formidable, either commando-types the equal of Russian Spetznaz, or technical staff with the capability of building their own parachronic conveyors if need be from not much more than stone knives and bearskins. They've been keeping a low profile since the shift started, even lower than the Interworld Service people. But now that the line seems to have stabilized, the Military people are straining at the Interworld leash. So, in the next month or two, there might be a spectacular raid on Homeline mounted from here, or the Centran warriors might elect to intervene in the local war. What would Infinity do about a Centran decapitating strike against Himmler, or Stalin, or both?

Of course, this adventure setting could be based from any echo timeline recently shifted to Quantum Five.
oldgringo2001 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-29-2012, 06:38 PM   #15
Fred Brackin
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Default Re: PT-41

Quote:
Originally Posted by oldgringo2001 View Post
Centrum's Secret Plan!

[B. now that the line seems to have stabilized, the Military people are straining at the Interworld leash. So, in the next month or two, there might be a spectacular raid on Homeline mounted from here, or the Centran warriors might elect to intervene in the local war. What would Infinity do about a Centran decapitating strike against Himmler, or Stalin, or both?
What woudl the spectacular raid on Homeline accomplish, especially since it would be essentially a suicide mission for what is probably a significant percentage of Centrum's small number of elite troops?

According to IW the Military Service is probably no more than 500,000 people which is not much compared to Homeline. The elite commandos would be smaller thna that. Centrum would never have nay hope agians tHomeline in a conventional military engagement.

Particularly since Centrum would have gotten themselves so cleverly to Q5 and totally cutting off their lines of supply and retreat in the process.

The alternative of zapping Himmler and/or Stalin doesn't seem to throw any great monkey wrench in Infinity's plans either. Centrum would not be in a strong positition to set up a puppet government in either state and Infinbity wasn't planning to do that either.

As strokes of strategi9c gneius go this seems right up there with Napoleon invading Russia i.e. fought in very hostile territory, lacking in realistic objectives and haivng poor sustainblity.
__________________
Fred Brackin
Fred Brackin is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-30-2012, 12:14 AM   #16
jeff_wilson
Computer Scientist
 
jeff_wilson's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Dallas, Texas
Default Re: PT-41

Quote:
Originally Posted by oldgringo2001 View Post
No one from Infinity has re-checked the mana levels here. Psionics seem to work normally, but there are no native-born psis, at least officially. If the Manhattan Project is working "normally," Infinity has six months to determine whether or not the Trinity test shot will result in another Merlin transformation.
IIRC, this should be readily tested by setting up a reactor pile and observing for containment breaches caused by spontaneous summoning of imps.
__________________
.
Reposed playtest leader.

The Campaigns of William Stoddard
jeff_wilson is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-31-2012, 04:41 AM   #17
oldgringo2001
 
oldgringo2001's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Silicon Valley
Default Re: PT-41

The Military Service people won't be as long on subtlety as the Interworld Service. After three years of seeing the Axis and Stalin at work, they would welcome an opportunity to cut loose. This could lead to the Interworld Service and Infinity co-operating to try to restrain the Military Service people.

As for a spectacular strike on Homeline, how about taking over a projector long enough to get themselves back into Centrum-accessible territory. If they can take some valuable prisoners with them, so much the better!

And, yes, both of them are pretty crack-brained ideas, but there are so many real-world examples of crack-brained operations for mounting one to be labeled as unrealistic. Some of these examples succeeded, like MacArthur's Inchon invasion or the Israeli rescue of hostages at Entebbe, in Uganda.
oldgringo2001 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-31-2012, 11:52 AM   #18
Dustin
 
Dustin's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: The former Chochenyo territory
Default Re: PT-41

Sounds like Centrum hasn't acted to neutralize MacArthur so much as they wanted to move him (with his family) somewhere else to further their interest. Perhaps after feeding him some misinformation about the conflict with Homeline, they're setting him up as a prescient Revolutionary War general who can become an early President and change the future of American politics towards greater centralization. Or perhaps (after a Latin implant) as Marcus Aurelius' successor, etc.
__________________
My gaming blog: Thor's Grumblings
Keep your friends close, and your enemies in Close Combat.
Dustin is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
infinite worlds, world war ii

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 03:22 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.