New Reality Seeds

[fchase8]

For one thing, the world of Homeline is quite rich and safe, much more so than our own world. Certainly places like Europe, America, and Japan. Less to fix at home, much more to spend on 'fixing' other worlds.

Even in our world, governments still spend money and even lives on other places rather than just devote everything domestically. Issues of 'national greatness' can accrue massive resources, even when there are regular problems to deal with. The U.S. funded the race to the moon while millions lay in poverty. Taiwan bribes countries to recognize it over China, despite income inequality.

There's also that Infinity is the prime actor offworld, over any national government. Indeed, Infinity being so powerful would push national governments to their own actions, who don't want a U.N. corporation running everything offworld.

And there's Centrum, a useful excuse to justify any offworld action. 'Why gain influence in this monarchy dictatorship? To counter Centrum gaining influence in it!'

Homeliners also have a tendency to view outtimers as 'less than Homeliners'. It's not unlike colonial imperialists or even Cold War strategists, who would accept and even support hierarchical non-democracies in their colonies & proxies that they'd never accept at home.


Infinity can't completely police national governments, because it answers (sort of) to the U.N. That's why the Security Council members have the most active offworld policies. Two of those powers don't seem to be democracies on Homeline, and the other three are hardly immune to the call of national greatness.

And Homeline Germany and Japan don't seem to support authoritarian crosstime versions of their nations - not just Axis Germany or Japan, but indeed Kaiser Germany or Imperialist Japan.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Apollonian

I think that "X country takes an interest in Y timeline" should usually be read as "A few important people in X country have a bee in their bonnet about Y timeline, and are making life unnecessarily difficult. Most of X's citizens don't give a fig for timeline Y." There are, after all, infinite worlds to take an interest in here...

No, there are not, unless you are running substantial differences from the book. Campaigns specifies there are 841 known earths, and furthermore says that 140 of the known worlds are on unreachable quanta.

Now, I'm not going to hold strictly to saying that new worlds can't be discovered, or that you're not playing an Infinite worlds game if you have 1400 worlds in play, but if you have 10,000 or an arbitrarily large number of them, you've left the source material.

This is important because it lets individual worlds matter. If I can take a month to find a world identical to the one I just left, then people won't care about worlds. The setting is built so that each individual world matters, and can't really be replaced that well.

[PTTG]

Nonetheless, it's called "Infinite Worlds." Not "Infinite Easily Accessable Worlds," true, but everybody in Homeline is generally of the opinion that there's a heck of a lot of worlds.

So I do tend to read it along the lines of a few dozen people in a loose organization might be sentimental enough about their history that they, for instance, want to fund a conveyor full of food and fuel to besieged positions in the Empire of California and Protectorate of Mexico.

This has the advantage of allowing player action to meaningfully counter or reinforce the intervention. If "the USA taking an interest in the worldline" meant a formal US policy decision and the mobilization of a few volunteer divisions and an air wing, then what exactly will the PCs do of importance (unless they've got a critical role to either succeed at or fail, causing the war to be thrown off).

[adm]

Originally Posted by ericthered

No, there are not, unless you are running substantial differences from the book. Campaigns specifies there are 841 known earths, and furthermore says that 140 of the known worlds are on unreachable quanta.

Now, I'm not going to hold strictly to saying that new worlds can't be discovered, or that you're not playing an Infinite worlds game if you have 1400 worlds in play, but if you have 10,000 or an arbitrarily large number of them, you've left the source material.

This is important because it lets individual worlds matter. If I can take a month to find a world identical to the one I just left, then people won't care about worlds. The setting is built so that each individual world matters, and can't really be replaced that well.

I would point out, that by the book, new worlds are being found on a regular basis, at some point 10,000 worlds is a likely eventual find.

[YankeeGamer]

I could see Infinity and the EU working at cross purposes, and the EU thinking similar thoughts to Centrum on some timelines. The EU wants a united Europe, and Centrum wants a united, stable Earth. I could see the EU working with a local faction that's trying to unite Europe into a rational, unified super-state, then discovering that they are directly opposing Infinity--because the locals tryng to unite Europe are backed by Centrum.

There could be further fallout when the EU, or parts of it, confront Infinity, saying, "You're meddling in Europe is making a new World War almost guaranteed!"

Much political fallout ensues, especially if infinity can't prove that Tha Allaince for a United Europe" or whoever is a Centrum patsy--or worse, says, "We have proof, but that information is too important to reveal. You need to trust us."

Que major shakeup, with a possibility of one or more countries starting to work to recruit their own ISWAT equivalent, since ISWAT has people capable of killing, disappearing anyone.

Then things get nasty, as some question if Centrum is as bad as Infinity portrays it.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by YankeeGamer

Que major shakeup, with a possibility of one or more countries starting to work to recruit their own ISWAT equivalent, since ISWAT has people capable of killing, disappearing anyone.

Then things get nasty, as some question if Centrum is as bad as Infinity portrays it.

The major problem with that is that it runs you right into a plot hole so huge the official setting pretty much doesn't even *try* to justify it. Specifically that the competing governments of Earth have transferred responsibility for regulating and policing something that has totally transformed the economy of the planet and at least potentially exposed them all to multiple existential threats to a small corporation. And left it there. This makes absolutely zero sense whatsoever - indeed it's difficult to imagine a more fundamental abrogation of their responsibilities as governments than giving up regulating their own economies and defending their own citizens - so if you touch that, you have to address the question of why they want in now and not years ago.

[AlexanderHowl]

Yes, the IW setting does not make that much sense when you think of it (as if some overarching deity is playing around with the psychologist of the people of the Homeline governments...). It could be a bit of MAD, but the inability to protect against crosstime attacks suggests that Homeline should be a radioactive wasteland instead of a prosperous society. After all, what would keep North Korea from depositing a nuke crosstime in the White House?

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

After all, what would keep North Korea from depositing a nuke crosstime in the White House?

The ICops of course. And it totally makes sense the US government would trust them with the job instead of raising their own parachronic security forces. Doesn't it?

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by adm

I would point out, that by the book, new worlds are being found on a regular basis, at some point 10,000 worlds is a likely eventual find.

GURPS Finite But Ever-Increasing Number Of Worlds

[mr beer]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

GURPS Finite But Ever-Increasing Number Of Worlds

^

Pithy!