On the Infinite Worlds Setting and Cabal-style Cosmology

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by shkspr1048

...
Anyway, another thought occurs to me. If the deeper Astral Realms are supposed to be the homes of the gods, how might two conflicting images of a god, from two parallel worlds connected to the Astral, manifest? For instance, say there is the standard manifestation of Zeus (Sky Father, King of the Greek Gods, etc.), while from another world there's a version that had a different origin myth (where, say, eldest brother Hades became King of the Gods, and Zeus is relagated to the status of a minor rain deity)? Would these two versions manifest seperately, be combined into a single ...Omni-Zeus, or what?

One Zeus lives in Paris France, and the other in Paris Texas.
Remember Astral Plane is higher "wavelength" than the material but it still isn't as true as higher levels such as the Archangels and decans exist in physical state.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Lamech

Does the setting books ever say that the Cabal is limited in the worlds it can go to? Indeed do they say that infinity is limited in the worlds that it can go to? .

I find it difficult to believe that standard Cabal methods would send them to no mana worlds, and impossible to believe that parachronic travel could take you to a Heaven or Hell.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Lamech

Does the setting books ever say that the Cabal is limited in the worlds it can go to? .

A theoretical question that will never have a practical answer until the Cabal gets to the last would possible in its' metaphysics......if there is one.

If there isn't you'll never be sure. All you'll ever know is that the number is large and shows no sign of coming to an end. Infinity (the mathematical concept and not the corp) is like that. No one except Buzz Lightyear ever even gets to it much less beyond it.

[Lamech]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

A theoretical question that will never have a practical answer until the Cabal gets to the last would possible in its' metaphysics......if there is one.

If there isn't you'll never be sure. All you'll ever know is that the number is large and shows no sign of coming to an end. Infinity (the mathematical concept and not the corp) is like that. No one except Buzz Lightyear ever even gets to it much less beyond it.

First note, there are definitely rare rule breaking worlds that can only be accessed by certain methods, for example a number of worlds can only be found by leaving from one specific worlds. But I'm talking about the more standard, vast majority of the worlds.

Cabal has ways of getting to worlds other than the astral. They also love nexuses, and think psionics are pretty cool, so they can jump between worlds too. Infinity also has jumpers. It seems to me that if the Cabal's astral could miss any significant fraction of worlds that jumpers can get too they would know. Furthermore if infinity jumpers could get to any significant number of worlds that conveyers couldn't get too they would also figure that out. And the reverse of both of those too.
Therefore since I don't see anything about jumpers or conveyers having a different world set, and ditto for jumpers and astral it would seem the set of astral worlds=set of jumper worlds = set of conveyer worlds. If the sets didn't match up well you would find that out. If every given world had only a 50% chance of being Astral findable, and a 50% chance of being conveyer findable, you would very quickly find worlds on conveyers that can't be reached via jumpers, or astral worlds that can't be reached via jumpers.

P.S. No mana worlds aren't strictly no mana. It can be raised in countless manners such as sacred architexture, reality shards, mana enhancers. Or the Cabalists could simply find dreamers via travel through Nod. So no mana =! not connected to astral.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Lamech

It seems to me that if the Cabal's astral could miss any significant fraction of worlds that jumpers can get too they would know..

Maybe if the The Cabal had a central clearinghouse rather than every Lodge and possibly even every Cabalist keeping secrets from every other oner.

The Cabal is not scientifically, logiically or even efficiently organized. Logical conjecturers about what they "should" know are unlikley to be correct.

Infinity keeps secrets too, but more importanl is it's limited track record timewise and even more limited number of Jumpers. Once you throw out the obvious exceptions your statistical pool gets even smaller. If you wonder, Centrum mioght ahve a bette rgrasp on theory but has even less expereince than Infinity in terms of numbers of worlds.

You have formed methematical postulates about what should be knowable which is okay, but when you move on to assuming that since X is knowable in a theretical sense then Infinity and/or the Cabal should know things get dubious.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Maybe if the The Cabal had a central clearinghouse rather than every Lodge and possibly even every Cabalist keeping secrets from every other one.

Absolutely. To make the Cabal more interesting to play, I posited the world called Newton-X, where Newton got his occult theories to work. It's now 1720, and the Royal Society contains a fair number of magicians. The Cabal found the world about 1700 local time, and found that a simple takeover was hard, and allowing the Royal Society to become a large and unconventional lodge worked better.

So we have Cabalists exploring the universe for SCIENCE! They share information, behave rationally and puzzle and impress other Cabalists. They have met Centrum, and got a fair bit of information out of them. It works pretty well, and I get to have Edmond Halley running the project to study time rates on different worlds. He's no magician, but he would like to visit any world they find where his comet is on show. Newton is getting old, cranky, and busy with politics. He occasionally shows up, tells people they're idiots, and solves the problem.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by shkspr1048

Hmm. So the Astral Realms would be a dimension of space-time that connects various worlds, like an ocean surrounding a series of islands

Just so. My Cabal even call it the "astral sea" for just this reason. The PC naval officer keeps forgetting there's no water in (most of) it, though.

Originally Posted by shkspr1048

Anyway, another thought occurs to me. If the deeper Astral Realms are supposed to be the homes of the gods, how might two conflicting images of a god, from two parallel worlds connected to the Astral, manifest?

Questioning gods on why they do this seems courageous. Let us know how you get on?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

One Zeus lives in Paris France, and the other in Paris Texas.

You laugh. My girlfriend took world history a couple years back, and the instructor included a geography quiz where the students had to be able to place a selection from 100 significant locations on an unlabelled world map. He didn't tell them where the places were; they had to research them from the bare list. A large share of the class marked the location for Odessa, Texas.

Bill Stoddard

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by shkspr1048

If the deeper Astral Realms are supposed to be the homes of the gods, how might two conflicting images of a god, from two parallel worlds connected to the Astral, manifest?

My understanding is that gods aren't on the astral plane. They're on the plane above it, the one full of Platonic archetypes.

Bill Stoddard

[Daeglan]

Originally Posted by whswhs

My understanding is that gods aren't on the astral plane. They're on the plane above it, the one full of Platonic archetypes.

Bill Stoddard

Are they similar to platonic solids?