Catalog of the Weird Parallels

[Flyndaran]

The dateline was created in 1884, and is very politically defined. It would be weird for it to follow modern relations in realities centuries off.

[PTTG]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

The dateline was created in 1884, and is very politically defined. It would be weird for it to follow modern relations in realities centuries off.

I was speaking approximately. In fact, it's quite hard to find out where the portal line is, since, by its very nature, both sides meet up seamlessly. Nonetheless, "somewhere in the Pacific Ocean" is a reasonable place for it to be, though, since if something does break the portals it wouldn't hurt anyone too badly.

[Flyndaran]

I'm not criticizing, because weird is often code for interesting.
Imagine if the portals' locations are defined by some as yet undetermined world's political dictates.
When wars break out, the vagueness of agreed upon lines make the portals wander.
The timeline of such a parallel could be inferred somewhat by their effect, assuming upheavals coincide with common history.
But wait, it seems like WWI is approaching. What effect would such global events have on the portals?

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by PTTG

Daisy-1

A circular chain of 7 echoes of (insert an interesting date) which are apparently linked along the international date line. It's unclear -- perhaps impossible to determine -- when the portals formed, because anytime someone sailed across the date line from Daisy-1A to Daisy-1B, that same person sailed from Daisy-1B to Daisy-1C!

Without crosstime travel, it's all very stable and almost elegant. Of course, as soon as even the most trivial interaction occurs, things are going to break in a breathtaking fashion... albeit rather slower if it predates Pacific travel.

What dates would be most interesting?

EDIT: And if you want it really interesting, have Daisy-1A on Q5, Daisy-1B on Q6, and so on.

I vote 1945, with WWII having been fought on all six worlds without them realizing the portals, which only became known when Daisy-1C's USA used a nuclear bomb on Daisy-1D's Tokyo after Daisy-1D sued for peace from their own USA. Daisy-1C/D was the only use of a nuke on Tokyo among them; 1A/B stopped after Hiroshima, 1B/C and D/E stopped after Nagasaki, 1E/F engaged in a costly land invasion of the islands, and 1F/A ended up with Japan accidentally nuking Hawaii. (USA-1A still isn't sure how that happened!)

[PTTG]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

I vote 1945, with WWII having been fought on all six worlds without them realizing the portals, which only became known when Daisy-1C's USA used a nuclear bomb on Daisy-1D's Tokyo after Daisy-1D sued for peace from their own USA. Daisy-1C/D was the only use of a nuke on Tokyo among them; 1A/B stopped after Hiroshima, 1B/C and D/E stopped after Nagasaki, 1E/F engaged in a costly land invasion of the islands, and 1F/A ended up with Japan accidentally nuking Hawaii. (USA-1A still isn't sure how that happened!)

I like that... and yeah, it would most likely have to be post-WWII for it to be a rapid reveal. As late as the 1930s, I could imagine small discrepancies between things happening in the world immediately East and West of one's own could go unexplained for more than a year.

If, however, a conveyor appeared in a modern context, then I get the feeling that its mere appearance might start a very rapid breakdown cascade. One telephone call would put asymetric packets into the communication network, and from there the whole system would have asymetric slowdowns, and from there it's only a matter of time until a corporation on Daisy-1F sends an email to tech support on Daisy-1E and -1G, but 1G books a flight a milisecond later than 1E, and then ends up taking a westbound plane instead of an eastbound plane (or even minor deviations while flying over the pole)... Pretty soon you have three techs in one world and, at best, a shortage of cubicles.

The thing I really love about this is how dang hard it would be to figure out when you're inside it.

[Jasonft]

Would travel near or even over Alaska/ Russia jump worlds? This could have lead to some very interesting wartime confusions once air travel and radio communications become the norm.

Likewise underwater travel. A submarine killing the 'same' ship more than once is entirely possible.

The level of confusion once things start breaking down will be immense. Once people start to get a clue the ocean floor out there is going to be intensely studied by the out-timers while the locals start thoroughly losing their minds.

[fchase8]

Originally Posted by PTTG

Neat idea! That opens up a delightful can of worms about time manipulation.

Elevation: Time passes at homeline normal at sea level. Time is slowed by a factor derived from the altitude. (Specifically, 1-(B16/50000)^9), in feet. This results in something like the following:

I think there was an idea like this in Einstein's Dreams. Time moved slower, the higher the elevation, so most people tried to live as high up as they could, to extend their lives - though there were also the reckless types who lived their short ground lives to the fullest.

[Jasonft]

There is a gold mine in South Africa that goes down just over two kilometers. How much faster would time be for the miners? How hard would it be to pump that much extra air down that far?

[PTTG]

Originally Posted by Jasonft

There is a gold mine in South Africa that goes down just over two kilometers. How much faster would time be for the miners? How hard would it be to pump that much extra air down that far?

It would be 303% of the sea-level speed, which would actually be pretty reasonable. At the bottom of the Kola borehole, it'd be 18600% the surface speed.

Another chrono-linked skerry:

There's a cave in France, about 300 meters long, accessible from the surface on both ends. Inside this cave is a portal such that going north sends you 10 years into the "future" and going south, the other way. However, in the final timeline in the series, the cave has collapsed, meaning travel from that time is only possible into the past. It went unnoticed until someone found you could walk through the cave one way but not the other.

It was discovered only a few weeks ago. It's not clear how far back the cave can take you, nor if changes in the past affect the future. All of them do appear to have strong inertia, keeping them mostly together, so someone without crosstime exposure might think that they're in a universe where paradoxes solve themselves (Harry Potter style).

In this case I'd particularly like to have the PCs be natives messing with what they think is time travel...

[William]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Lilith: A world where men exist only as myths. ... Yamato is in the middle of a fierce war of unification. ... Pregnancy seems to happen spontaneously and the offspring are not clones of the mother.

By any chance is a warlord named Oda Nobunaga still the main unifying force in Yamato at the moment, and presently seeking a certain red armor? ^_^