Catalog of the Weird Parallels

[Flyndaran]

Railways and water transport are very location specific. Widespread roads are the only real competition for hypothetical unrestricted flight paths.

Navies can have vehicles orders of magnitude larger than any flying vehicle. Militaries have a thing about size and mobile weapons' platforms.

[robkelk]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Railways and water transport are very location specific. Widespread roads are the only real competition for hypothetical unrestricted flight paths.
...

Having seen more ships load and unload without docks than with them in the Northwest Passage, I have to ask you to expand upon that statement. I'm obviously not understanding what you're saying.

[Flyndaran]

My point is that "If the sky is the best, cheapest, and safest, highway, what functions as a natural barrier?" is what our present already is.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

My point is that "If the sky is the best, cheapest, and safest, highway, what functions as a natural barrier?" is what our present already is.

And my counterpoint was "No, air travel is quickest, but ground and sea are still vital, practical, irreplaceable." Major ports remain vital to commerce because water based transport is far cheaper than flight and in most ways just as reliable.

[Flyndaran]

Vital to infrastructure, sure. I never said boats don't exist.
Could we step back and you describe the world line more?
How are they making crashes and vehicle damage so far less likely than us?

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Path/Book Magic does not use or depend on mana, at least under the default rules. Even energy accumulation uses a separate form of energy than mana, so it can hypothetically work in no mana worlds, depending on the assumptions of the setting. As far as I know, Homeline/Centrum depends on physical observations to detect magical, psychic, or other supernatural abilities.

To be fair, Path/Book does crop up in a few other places in Infinite Worlds; once in Thaumatology: Age of Gold, where mana is just set at normal globally, and in Taft-1 where it represents sufficently advanced technology.

I suppose Jomon-1 could be default style Path/Book, but that could create problems with other parallels, unless you specify that it's something esoteric and specific to this parallel.

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Path/Book Magic does not use or depend on mana, at least under the default rules.

That's a GM call, really; see, for example, GURPS Thaumatology, p. 126. With regard to Infinity - I think that there's a line somewhere in Infinite Worlds heavily hinting that some timelines have a sort of quasi-aspected mana that makes ritualistic magic work while spell-magic doesn't.

[Flyndaran]

What works in a particular reality is always up for GM determination.
If basic artificial electricity fails in one world, why is it hard to imagine that some form of magic fails to work outside of certain regions within a world?
If you want, you could instead think of the null zones as anti-magic rather than lacking a necessary "mana".

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Vital to infrastructure, sure. I never said boats don't exist.
Could we step back and you describe the world line more?
How are they making crashes and vehicle damage so far less likely than us?

First off this world has cheap antigravity through alchemy and has had such since the 1500s. At first the effect was seen as a toy, but soon navies started to use the benefits. Britain and the Netherlands, pioneers in flight, were regularly sailing over Europe and West Asia to trade with India and China.

In the late 17th century a British fleet sailed through the skies and bombared Paris and Versailles. Forcing the shocked French to both surrender and invest in alchemical flight. The 18th century saw the exploration of the interiors of the continents and the first trips to the Moon.

Transport barriers and limits we still face disappear on this world before 1800.

Note vehicles float in the air, sure they sometimes crash, but it is only about as common as submarine crashes.

[Jasonft]

Over a century and nobody built flying warships? That might be the one unbelievable thing about this world. Someone will *always* take the newest thing and try to make a weapon out of it.

Just how long was it from Kittyhawk to the Red Baron? Less than twenty years.