Infinite Worlds - The Messy Version

[Anonymous GM]

I dig Infinite Worlds a lot. I haven't run it yet, but I keep on kicking the game around in my head, tinkering with it and trying to find a way to make it my own. (I had another thread here a few years back dealing with tweaking the setting in some different ways than what I've got here.)

However, one stumbling block for me has always been the role Infinity Unlimited plays in the setting. It always looked a bit too much like the role was assigned because the game needed a simple, monolithic, and above all singular power who had total authority over crossworld travel for game purposes. But it was also pretty clear from the book itself that even the authors couldn't really work out a plausible way the world would ever go along with it - thus the Big Secret, which allows you to skip straight to the desired end-state without needing to show your work.

But this got me thinking of what the Infinite Worlds setting would look like if you muddy up the waters a bit.

Proposed setting tweaks:

Van Zandt invents parachronics, as in default setting. Founds Infinity Unlimited, patents parachronic travel. Tries to keep a monopoly on the technology.

At which point the major nations of the world immediately take the technology for themselves, which is really the only way this would ever play out, Big Secret or no.

I'm picturing a world where the tech is certainly not ubiquitous - it is still immensely sophisticated technology, complex and difficult to use. As a rough analogy, a conveyor is about as difficult to build or buy as a fighter jet; a projector is about as difficult to build or buy as a nuclear weapon.

But this does still mean that most major nation states can build their own conveyors, as can a number of large corporations. Projectors require a major investment of time and resources, even if you "know how" to build one in theory; mostly just the largest nations, and Infinity Unlimited, have working projectors.

The Infinity Patrol do not have authority over the actions of nation states. However, just because governments aren't going to answer to a single corporation, doesn't mean they don't recognize the value of police - the I-Cops become something like a combination of Interpol and Blackwater, a corporate contract police and paramilitary force who handle interdimensional policing of crosstime crime.

However, this is a world where there is far less control over the use of parachronics, especially conveyors. What are the implications of that?

(It does occur to me that this is even more of a nightmare scenario for Centrum. For all their horror at a non-united world with parachronics, Homeline-default pretty much does have a single world power in charge of parachronic travel. But what if the fractious, divided world really did get the tech, with no central authority governing its use?)

[Hans Rancke-Madsen]

Michael Kurland's Perchance features an interesting variation. There are multiple different groups that know the secret of sideways dimension-travel. Some of them are extremely brutal when it comes to dealing with rivals, and the empire run by what would be the equivalent of Infinity, Inc (or Piper's Parachronic empire) is just as much concerned with keeping the coordinates of their worlds secret to avoid having them nuked as it is to govern its own worlds.


Hans

[ericthered]

MAD has a whole new meaning here. There will be a whole new demand for new worlds, particularly ones people don't know about. The home line itself will become important as the site that projectors use, but any one else will keep important stuff off of it.

Nations will recruit aggressively from near parrelells and other good sources of manpower. They will claim worlds all to themselves and aggressively protect the coordinates. "Trade Worlds", that every one knows about, will be the grounds for most trades.

This will happen on different scales, depending on the climate, but it will happen. In addition, the original company will have swollen to a government fairly quickly. They will have taken over several worlds (whether literally or economically), and should be able to stand up to their home governments. In fact, Its in their own interest to base any operation that doesn't involve projectors off of homeline.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Anonymous GM

Van Zandt invents parachronics, as in default setting. Founds Infinity Unlimited, patents parachronic travel. Tries to keep a monopoly on the technology.

At which point the major nations of the world immediately take the technology for themselves, which is really the only way this would ever play out, Big Secret or no.

I also had trouble with this for my Infinite Cabal campaign (currently on hiatus). Since a focus of that is a faction of the Cabal trying to find out what the hell is really going on I needed to have an answer, or indeed, several answers that aren't incompatible, and make sense in different and incompatible worldviews.

An aspect of that is the assumption that the view most Infinity staff have of the multiple worlds is just wrong. The realisation that the section "The Physics of Infinity" on p20 of Infinite Worlds makes less sense than "The Williams-Kohr Hypothesis" on the next page set me free to create an explanation for Infinity to have that is radical enough to frighten/bribe the nations of the world into letting Von Zandt have his way. PM me if you want to know it - some of my players read these forums.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Anonymous GM

- the I-Cops become something like a combination of Interpol and Blackwater, a corporate contract police and paramilitary force who handle interdimensional policing of crosstime crime.

If there are no laws about travelling crosstime what are the I-Cops enforcing?

Well, I can see _national_ laws about what persons operating from that nation's soil could do but those would obviously be enforced by that nations police.

A MAD-like stand-off limiting unwise policies of Homeline nations might be possible but it might not either.

Even that results in Cold War and thoroughly hot wars possible not even limited to out-time regions are entirely likely. The conveyor si the most unstoppable delivery system for ether conventional or nuclear weapons ever invented. I certainly wouldn't trust either Iran or North Korea with one.

Best system for smuggling terrorists across national borders too.

The handwave that allows for Infinity to exist as it does in a world mostly like our own may not be particularly plausible but without it the only stable worlds that could have crosstime travel are ones not very like our own i.e. Centrum and then you get into storytelling about people who aren't very much like us.

[Sunrunners_Fire]

Originally Posted by Anonymous GM

However, this is a world where there is far less control over the use of parachronics, especially conveyors. What are the implications of that?

Homeline suffers nuclear death within (at most) five years via conveyor-mounted nuclear weapons; MAD ceases to be a concern.

How? Easy. Find an empty Earth. Go dig where you know the materials are. Dig it up. Process it. Assemble it into bombs. Mount the bombs in custom conveyors. Place the conveyor at a different alt-Earth location corresponding to the Homeline-Earth location you want to nuke. Set the timer, send the conveyor.

Boom!

It should be noted that there is no defense against this trick. And it doesn't require a nation to do it, either. Expect nuclear terrorist strikes to become a daily occurrence.

The winners and the losers of this (but only the rich and important ones, mind; the poor and unimportant will be left behind given that they are utterly replaceable) will have spread off-world and start forming the cores of various ever-competing ever-expanding cross-world empires. Those empires will survive, scattered, with Centrum eating them alive (via outright destruction, subversion or absorption) as it encounters them.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Sunrunners_Fire

Homeline suffers nuclear death within (at most) five years via conveyor-mounted nuclear weapons; MAD ceases to be a concern.

Bases on homeline will still be maintained in order to use projectors. There's only two worlds where this can be done, possibly three, and their spread out.

Centrum itself is a badly hobbled power. Its population has been decimated, its working off of the remnants of a world war and its population base came from Australia. They've lost the language and historical information they need to be truly effective at what they do, and are crippled by an anti-tech bias and refusal to trust non-centrans. Centrum won't be able to crush the powers that flee earth. It will be the big dog, but in real warfare all thats going to happen is quantums 6 and 7 getting destroyed.

[Running Wolf]

You could also go with a lone guy making the equipment in his basement. Might take some hand waving but it would have more of a Sliders feel to it than IW.

I've toyed around with the idea of combining a Stargate SG-1 setting with IW. Start out with the PCs and everyone else thinking they are going to alien worlds only to discover that a few of the worlds are actually Alternate Earths.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Running Wolf

I've toyed around with the idea of combining a Stargate SG-1 setting with IW. Start out with the PCs and everyone else thinking they are going to alien worlds only to discover that a few of the worlds are actually Alternate Earths.

Wouldn't survive the first clear night.

Even by day some terrain features are distinctive enough to prove that this wasn't an alien world. Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Devil's Tower, Ayers Rock, maybe the White Cliffs of Dover et al.

Then you have the alternates being discovered by the first DNA test on anything. You could get around that by having the Ancients eeed the alien worlds with Earth-life but it diminshes the alieness.

[Sunrunners_Fire]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Bases on homeline will still be maintained in order to use projectors. There's only two worlds where this can be done, possibly three, and their spread out.

Projectors are only important if you're trying to push out of your quantum. There are infinite worldlines within a single quantum. Why do you need to push outside it? Why do you want to let your enemies have/keep that ability when it costs you very little to take away? Its' just one world. And you can always go back after they're all dead and dig in ... but not on Earth. Push off the Moon instead; something made significantly easier by alt-Earths that already have functional moonbases which can be infiltrated / subverted ...

There are also world jumpers of various flavors which don't have any such restriction.

Oh! No ISWAT either. Is each individual nation going to be able to handle everything that ISWAT does? Infinity is stretched past the breaking point and is only holding on by pure luck and some really scary recruits. No Infinity, no recruits, more limited resources, etc, etc, etc ...

More and more failure points. And all it takes is one failure to eat the world. Say that one nation, lets go with N Korea for kicks and giggles, ticks off a capital-G God (something Infinity is very careful not to do but that each individual nation won't necessarily be as careful about) that can world jump and retain omnipotence while doing so?

Centrum itself is a badly hobbled power. Its population has been decimated, its working off of the remnants of a world war and its population base came from Australia. They've lost the language and historical information they need to be truly effective at what they do, and are crippled by an anti-tech bias and refusal to trust non-centrans. Centrum won't be able to crush the powers that flee earth. It will be the big dog, but in real warfare all thats going to happen is quantums 6 and 7 getting destroyed.

Until Centrum grabs Homeline, that is. Without a unified force to hold it off, and the Homeline forces worried about those nuclear terrorists (and each other ...) ...

Do remember that Homeline only discovered that Centrum existed because one of the Centrum spies within Infinity got caught. No Infinity means Homeline doesn't know Centrum exists. Thats' gonna suck.