The Strangerverse in IW

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

There is a another perfectly feasible solution. The Stranger is a liar. He doesn't want his experimental subjects to know about alternate universe so he explains his advanced technology by claiming he's from the future. Of course given that the point of doing it is to screw with history to see what happens, he has to be either an actual timetraveller or just long lived enough that he can see the results play out.

Or he has to have access to a skerry so complex that its essentially is time travel and the 'skerry' component is just the way an outsider sees it.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

You mean "not use the Gregorian calendar tat I specified"?

Same calandar, just different starting date according to Homeline astronomy.

If it's something weasely like earth forming a scant couple centuries later, then virtually nothing in their history is different. Only the dates of famous astronomical events would differ like the supernovae.

But one could just go with time travel ala the setting style in Infinite Worlds or Back To The Future. Where his reality is a probability rather than fixed. Each adjustment he makes alters his reality but nobody else's.
The Man Who Folded Himself depicts a time traveler that so fully mangled his own time line he is his own father AND mother.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Or he has to have access to a skerry so complex that its essentially is time travel and the 'skerry' component is just the way an outsider sees it.

That cold be a weird method of crosstime travel/orientation. He needs to alter this one/few timeline(s) in order to "unlock" others.

[fchase8]

I had long thought that out-time operatives could say that they were from the future. It would especially work for Homeliners on echoes and close parallels, since Homeline essentially is from that timeline's future. And it would work for actors who would only show up once, since then people wouldn't be asking if the interventions changed that future (it could even explain only showing up once - 'the future's been changed, so no more arrivals').


Though I also thought it could be used by Centrum in taking over a timeline.

In Infinite Worlds there is a mention of a moved sixteenth century echo, Ariachne, where Centrum deliberately revealed their existence to facilitate taking over the echo. In the original Time Travel there was mention of an echo that was moved by Centrum when Queen Mary executed her sister Elizabeth.

I put those two together and imagined that Centrum deliberately revealed its existence after moving Ariachne. It was a 'test case', to see if such a reveal would work better or worse (Infinite Worlds says that Centrum is essentially trying different strategies, and will check back in a generation).

In such an Arachne, the new Uplift Service overlords could have revealed their existence by saying that they are 'from an alternate future,' or even just 'the future'.


The same sort of thing happened in the short story 'Mozart In Mirrorshades', and William Gibson's The Peripheral.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by fchase8

I had long thought that out-time operatives could say that they were from the future. It would especially work for Homeliners on echoes and close parallels, since Homeline essentially is from that timeline's future. .

Optionally, on Mandrake-1 (The "Age of Gold" setting), Infinity operatives may have come to the attention of of the media. Although most assume that they are agents of a relatively benevolent mad scientist (which is, let's face it, true enough) the media knows them in that case as "The Futuremen" and some actually believe they are time travellers

[fchase8]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Optionally, on Mandrake-1 (The "Age of Gold" setting), Infinity operatives may have come to the attention of of the media. Although most assume that they are agents of a relatively benevolent mad scientist (which is, let's face it, true enough) the media knows in them in that case as "The Futuremen" and some actually believe they are time travellers

That could be the goal of a campaign (either in-world or Infinity) - to figure out where/when the 'Futuremen' came from. Or if they were even real at all...

[Drifter]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Same calandar, just different starting date according to Homeline astronomy.

If it's something weasely like earth forming a scant couple centuries later, then virtually nothing in their history is different. Only the dates of famous astronomical events would differ like the supernovae.

But one could just go with time travel ala the setting style in Infinite Worlds or Back To The Future. Where his reality is a probability rather than fixed. Each adjustment he makes alters his reality but nobody else's.
The Man Who Folded Himself depicts a time traveler that so fully mangled his own time line he is his own father AND mother.

Or he is telling the truth. For him it is 2258 and the timeline(s) he comes from are the actual present and the IW setting is just an echo.

Homeline and Centrum resolved their differences in some fashion. Reich-5 was defeated/walled off/cooperated with or whatever. However it ends up this future is rich and advanced and individuals with puerile or malicious or benevolent tastes can go around mucking with the billions of timelines available to them.

Jack Vance's Rumfuddle would be a great inspiration. Its an Infinite Worlds setting, and rich "rumfuddlers" go to other timelines and muck around with them, kidnapping famous people as babies (for example) and having them grow up in interesting or ironic situations. Like Hitler and his General Staff growing up in a world where they all end up as the staff of a Borscht Belt hotel in the Catskills serving Jewish vacationers, or Torquemada running the BBQ at a party.

The PCs could be disheartened to learn everything they know and love and hate in the IW is all very old news, been there done that, read the book and now is a mildly entertaining diversion akin to an elaborate youtube mashup.

I missed fchase8's post but this is essential the same thing. Just on a smaller scale than "Mozart in Mirrorshades"; no massive cross-time armies, at least not yet. Just one high tech, ultra rich, ultra powerful, kind of a jerk.. cough.. experimenter.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Same calandar, just different starting date according to Homeline astronomy.

If it's something weasely like earth forming a scant couple centuries later, then virtually nothing in their history is different. Only the dates of famous astronomical events would differ like the supernovae.

.

That's not how a sidereal chronology works. It uses small optical and radio astronomy units to measure the relative positions of planets, stars and radio sources.

So _everything_ astronomical would have to differ and not just a few things.

Also, since the Gregorian calendar was invented to measure solar years more accurately so that the date of Easter didn't keep drifting out of range. So the cycles of the Moon relative to the Vernal Equinox would either be obviously different uless there's a 200-odd year repeating cycle I don't know about (possible of course it's the sort of thing that obsesses theologians rather than modern astronomers)..

You also need to start human history (or at a minimum the AUC calendar that preceded the Anno Domini) 200-odd years earlier rather than alter.

It would make for a very weird parallel, especially if it was not different otherwise until Van Zandt.

[Flyndaran]

True and such astronomical and astrological differences would allow savvy crosstimers to realize that it isn't a "real" future.
But other than tightly dated natural disasters unrelated to human actions, everything would seem perfectly normal to a non-stargazer.