Catalog of the Weird Parallels

[PTTG]

Button-1 is moving backwards in time, relative to homeline. Current date 1793; next year it will be 1792. Strangely enough, it's apparently an echo with strong inertia aside from the chronological inversion.

On arrival, your perception of time instantly becomes reversed; you believe you're leaving at the moment you're actually arriving. Perhaps a material example would help...

From homeline's perspective, you depart on Monday(HL Time), which is Friday(B Time). They observe you marking off time backwards relative to them, until on Thursday(HL Time) and Tuesday(B Time), you return to Homeline almost one week younger than before.

From your perspective, you depart on Monday(HL Time). Your perception of time becomes clouded. It is now Tuesday(B Time). You perform your mission, marking off time forward and aging normally. On Friday(B Time), you return to Homeline. Things are again confused for a moment. It's now Thursday.

In effect, you have Destiny (Will depart Button in the exact state you departed Homeline in), because in a real sense those seemingly separate moments are the same. This proved to be a problem because if you leave Homeline with an empty logbook, that means that over the course of your mission, no matter what you write in the logbook, it'll become empty again before you leave. It's not clear why or how memories are preserved and nothing else.

There is a way around this, however. For example, when you depart, your logbook is filled with a false, silly mission log. You are ordered to erase your true mission log and write a false, silly mission log in its place. This is unsettling, because the text you erase during the mission is somehow an accurate recording of the mission. Homeline, if they could watch directly, sees the exact opposite; you use your pencil to scrape the lead off the page, then the eraser to scrub a new, more factual report into the paper. From homelines' perspective, when you finally return, you bring the accurate mission log that you remember erasing.

I have a headache.

[PTTG]

On Birthdays, everyone has the same birthday. Human gestation is apparently slowed to account for this, with the minimum being about eight months and the maximum being about twenty. Maybe one in a million births happen out of season, which is both conspicuously low for a biological phenomenon, yet conspicuously high for a supernatural one.

Two ways to play that idea; high inertia and no inertia.

In a high inertia line, the effect is to create an additional holiday -- the universally observed birth-day -- and presumably an understanding that everyone aught to be able to assist with births, since about 2% of the world's population goes into labor at the same time. Instead of birthdays, people might celebrate naming days, which presumably have the same import. Nonetheless, these differences are not frequently remarked upon.

In a low intertia line, culture is dramatically different, and those not born on the Birthday are considered important somehow in almost every culture.

[PTTG]

Societies

An uninhabited but earthlike worldline notable only because it had only one continent -- until the local astronomical year 1991. Quite abruptly, a very specific banestorm occurred, bringing to this world a collection of colonies from elsewhen.

Each colony of 20,000 people included farms (complete with domesicated plants and animals appropriate to the group) and simple dwellings, but little else, and each was taken (or duplicated from) a historical echo. Most curious of all, each colony was the nucleus of some great historical empire -- one was largely from London circa 950 CE, another Byzantium circa 390 CE. Other civilizations were represented more diversely; citizens of every US state circa 1780 were present in one such city/colony, and it was also the latest colony, in terms of origin time.

Aside from the banestormed settlements, the only structures were dirt tracts connecting the scattered settlements, and scattered stone ruins that resembled no particular architectural style. There, one might find tools, gold, maps, even inexplicably helpful technical manuals.

[ericthered]

So basically a game of civilization, after the manner of sid meier?

It's a fun concept, I must say.

[Ottriman]

Action Zone

The world seems to resemble our own on the surface, but any prolonged stay will disabuse travelers of that notion. This is a world in which what we would call action movie logic is the norm of reality.

Things explode, blunt trauma does very little, hordes of criminals/terrorists/whatever routinely get defeated by single heroes etc. etc.

This seems to have been true since the beginning according to whatever history books travelers have managed to look at. This has had big effects on how things are done, especially in terms of exploiting action movie effects to produce the most action hero type people (for military or police work).

EDIT: couldn't think of a good name here, sorry.

[PTTG]

The police force in that worldline is fantastically integrated, as every cop is paired with a diametrically opposite partner whom he grudgingly learns to accept and respect.

Hordes of gangsters and terrorists must exist with no adequately-explained origin, nor reason for overwhelming loyalty to the big bad.

[Ottriman]

Originally Posted by PTTG

The police force in that worldline is fantastically integrated, as every cop is paired with a diametrically opposite partner whom he grudgingly learns to accept and respect.

Hordes of gangsters and terrorists must exist with no adequately-explained origin, nor reason for overwhelming loyalty to the big bad.

Yes, probably some sort of attraction effect between those lacking strength and confidence.

Of course, the most threatening gangsters try to control their numbers and form distinct personalities. They're trying to gain plot armor via dipping into heist or gangster style action power.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Ottriman

Action Zone

EDIT: couldn't think of a good name here, sorry.

McClain-1 would probably be the first thing the scouts would think of.

Referencing The Last action Hero would be more esoteric and/or ironic but I can't think of the right name and am not in the mood to look it up.

[Ottriman]

Yankovich 1

A bizarre parallel where Weird Al Yankovich is the undisputed emperor of earth. Somehow the economy is prospering and the people seem very happy and gung ho about the whole thing.

He was apparently so popular once he started that in a series of bizarre events and coincidences he ended up in office, and from there every national leader agreed to let him take their place.

Yankovich 2

A much tamer Yankovich parallel, this one flipped the order of parody. In OTL he parodied a bunch of artists, but here his music came first and the other artists songs were done to parody/homage him.

[thorr-kan]

Originally Posted by Ottriman

Yankovich 1

A bizarre parallel where Weird Al Yankovich is the undisputed emperor of earth. Somehow the economy is prospering and the people seem very happy and gung ho about the whole thing.

He was apparently so popular once he started that in a series of bizarre events and coincidences he ended up in office, and from there every national leader agreed to let him take their place.

Yankovich 2

A much tamer Yankovich parallel, this one flipped the order of parody. In OTL he parodied a bunch of artists, but here his music came first and the other artists songs were done to parody/homage him.

YEAH!

Somebody attend one of his recent Self-Indulgent Tour dates? I did; first time he's scheduled a concert for when I was in-state. It was AWESOME. I definitely going to see one of his big shows some day.