Breach-1

Johnny1A.2 · 03-06-2019, 11:44 PM

Breach-1 is a timeline that gives both Infinity and Centrum fits. Not because its a hell world. It's actually a rather pleasant Earth parallel, no nasty diseases or other threats any worse than most. The climate is much like that of Homeline, land masses, atmosphere, weather, etc. are familiar.

It's apparently an 'empty' Earth, one of the versions where humans either never evolved or died out early, though all the great apes are present in their usual places for a wild world. In fact, the natural biosphere is very much like that of Homeline/Centrum, with almost all the same life forms in the same niches.

Neither Infinity nor Centrum have ever found any indication of native technological intelligence. Emphasis on the word 'native'.

What they have found is extensive indications of outside technological life, specifically human life armed with time-line conveyors. Many areas of the planet, esp. those near deposits of useful minerals or esp. good arable land, are littered with the remains of high-tech towns, mines, farming and other signs of agriculture, and all if it apparently imported from some other timeline.

All these settlements are abandoned. But quite a bit of equipment and records and other detritus were left behind, including actual conveyors in various states of repair (none working).

At first, each faction thought they had found an abandoned project of the other. It rapidly became clear that things were not so simple.

To begin with, the equipment in the abandoned settlements, as well as the architecture and other details, were high atypical of the technology base of either Homeline or Centrum. The conveyors worked on familiar principles, but were embodied in unusual form. Different designs, different circuitry, etc. The conveyors (and other equipment and buildings) tended to be built differently, too. The builders used relatively little steel, favoring bronze and other copper alloys. It quickly became apparent that they had taken copper metallurgy much further than either Homeline or Centrum, using alloys with many unfamiliar properties. Apparently, they had access to huge amounts of copper to work with, too, since they tended to make so many things out of it.

The architecture of the empty settlements ran to columns and domes, the closest thing Infinity personnel compared them to was a cross between Classical Greek and Islamic architecture, all embodied in a mix of stone and copper alloys. The settlements tended to be laid out not in a rectilinear pattern but in great loops and ovals and circles. Roundabouts were common, in not one case in any settlement were any right-angle cross-roads found.

Forensic analyses of the extensive ruins and remains indicated that they had been abandoned for at least 175-200 years. At that discovery, both Infinity and Centrum, who already been nervous about this time line, went bonkers. It appeared that someone had been using conveyor tech well before either of them, and had had access to technology comparable to Infinity/Homeline as well.

Eventually, human remains were discovered, in graveyards and occasionally in other rubble or ruins, and it got a bit more mysterious. The builders had apparently been essentially human, but averaged 6'6" (female) and 7' (male) and were built in proportion. Better preserved remains indicated that they were not quite of any familiar racial/ethnic mix, though most certainly human.

Extensive records were recovered, books, carvings, painting, all sorts of media, but were of no familiar language or alphabet. Electronic records were eventually recovered and played, but the voices spoke no language Infinity or Centrum knew, though a few linguists on Homeline suspected they might be hearing an Indo-European tongue, but one diverged early and 'aged' in a totally different direction than the familiar versions. Other linguists disagreed, the arguments continues unabated.

There was no sign of why the settlements (dozens of them around the world) were abandoned, little indication of violence, and no sign of why they left so much behind. They had apparently been settled there for some time, to judge by the graveyards and other signs of habitation, perhaps several generations.

If all this made Centrum and Infinity nervous (and it did), what made them semi-panicky was the discovery, on what on some timelines would be the island of Crete, or a half-finished projector complex. Further study indicated that yes, Breach-1 was indeed one of the timelines like Homeline and Centrum where projectors could be built and work.

The timeline is named 'breach' by Infinity because it represents an indication of a massive breach of the Secret, albeit one that predates the Secret. The indication that timeline-traveling humans predated Infinity that much, and by that scale, has shaken Infinity to the core. Breach-1 is highly secret, Infinity maintains major research bases there, and orders have gone out to all personnel to be on the watch for other traces of the mystery-builders on other time lines. Centrum is just as nervous and paranoid, and a few quiet exchanges of information have occurred between both factions on the matter.

Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2 · 03-07-2019, 01:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

Breach-1 <snip>

Heh heh heh. I love this! An occasional firm boot in the complacency is good for a major power.

Of course, this could be the contact point of a tangential array of quantum bands, going off in a new direction and intersecting the quantum bands of Infinity/Centrum at just that point. Meaning that the Breach parachronic civilization could still exist in a series of realities inaccessible to Infinity and Centrum.

Or worse, the breach civilization has already undergone the parachronic equivalent of a Technological Singularity, and they still exist on a level of para-reality that isn't even a theory to conventional parachronic science, looking "down" from godlike "heights" with intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic ...

SilvercatMoonpaw · 03-07-2019, 05:42 AM

My brain immediately went "Atlantis".

cptbutton · 03-07-2019, 05:52 AM

I misread the title and was expecting something about some important royal birth being a breech birth, meaning death or disability with the ensuing changes in government, etc.

cptbutton · 03-07-2019, 06:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

There was no sign of why the settlements (dozens of them around the world) were abandoned, little indication of violence, and no sign of why they left so much behind. They had apparently been settled there for some time, to judge by the graveyards and other signs of habitation, perhaps several generations.

The residents realized that the timeline was about to undergo a major quantum shift, like Centrum is trying to induce on Homeline. They didn't want to live in the new quantum, so they left.

Which leads to the question of why *everyone* left. You'd expect that there would always be some curmudgeons who refuse to go. Was their society so different somehow that either there weren't any such people, or that they could not evade forcible evacuation?

Maybe they physically *can't* live in the new quantum for some reason.

Or were there stay-behinds, who died out because there weren't enough to form a stable population?

Or are there descendants populations around, either hiding or just not stumbled upon yet?

Flyndaran · 03-07-2019, 08:43 AM

Or perhaps their remains, material and bodies, were "translated" into forms that could exist in the moved timeline.

Apollonian · 03-07-2019, 05:02 PM

Or this timeline, despite otherwise appearing mundane, has some strange phenomenon that removes sapient life every couple hundred years. Infinity and Centrum have discovered it just in time for this to start happening again...

Or the original settlers were involved in their own cross-temporal war, and the Infinity/Centrum intrusion is going to destabilize that struggle just as much it destabilizes their own...

Or it's an extremely strange and disturbing myth parallel, as Infinity discovers when a speculative fiction writer on Homeline starts producing stories that match Breach-1's details. All evidence (and a terribly thorough investigation) points to the writer not having any knowledge of Breach-1's actual existence. Infinity is torn on whether they should shut the writer down, or keep a hands-off posture and see if the writer produces some actionable intelligence...

Flyndaran · 03-07-2019, 05:53 PM

The biggest fear, I'd imagine, is that something could obliterate a cross-time society with just enough warning for nearly everyone to high tail it away without sign of resistance or violence.

ericthered · 03-07-2019, 06:44 PM

If projectors work (or appear to work) on Breach-1 and both infinity and Centrum can reach it, I expect a mad scramble for the world to ensue. Both sides eagerly scoop up as much technology as they can and do their best to ensure that neither side can stay on Breach long enough to figure out how to build a projector there. If you fail, the other side can use the infamous conveyor bombs to attack your home-world.

Michele · 03-08-2019, 02:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ericthered

If projectors work (or appear to work) on Breach-1 and both infinity and Centrum can reach it, I expect a mad scramble for the world to ensue. Both sides eagerly scoop up as much technology as they can and do their best to ensure that neither side can stay on Breach long enough to figure out how to build a projector there. If you fail, the other side can use the infamous conveyor bombs to attack your home-world.

Very good point. I was thinking more in terms of trying to achieve control there. It's the place where the low-intensity, mostly cloak-and-dagger war between Homeline and Centrum can - or must - go all-out, with both sides sending in their armored divisions and bomber wings.

Once both sides do commit large-scale conventional armies to the campaign, it will logically follow that those nuke-carrying conveyors will get used, as soon as the stunt becomes technologically feasible, and from any part of Breach either side is in control of. If you wait, you might risk losing the war for Breach, losing control of the parallel, and so becoming completely vulnerable and unable to retaliate. Therefore, as soon as you can, you will attack the enemy's home Earth.

Now, both sides have the technology to withstand a generally hostile environment, so saturating the place with radiations, unbreathable atmosphere, or bacteriological weapons won't be enough to just make the springboard unusable.
Unless they use things that don't work on our Earth, or that we don't know. Magic, importing Gotha zombies, pacts with elder demons, meddling with cosmic forces and TMWNMTK, induced ontoclysms to remodel the reality of Breach...

Neither world-scale wars nor the solutions above are my cup of tea, so I don't mind that the canon was built in such a way as to make this sort of things extremely difficult.

The only way out that wouldn't ruin the setting for me is that both sides achieve the tech breakthrough at the same time, and reach some sort of uneasy deal built on MAD - then you have the Cold War. They share Breach, each side militarizing half of the continents and building the conveyor equivalents of city-targeting ICBMs, with a no-first-use commitment.

03-06-2019, 11:44 PM	#1
Johnny1A.2 Join Date: Feb 2007	Breach-1 Breach-1 is a timeline that gives both Infinity and Centrum fits. Not because its a hell world. It's actually a rather pleasant Earth parallel, no nasty diseases or other threats any worse than most. The climate is much like that of Homeline, land masses, atmosphere, weather, etc. are familiar. It's apparently an 'empty' Earth, one of the versions where humans either never evolved or died out early, though all the great apes are present in their usual places for a wild world. In fact, the natural biosphere is very much like that of Homeline/Centrum, with almost all the same life forms in the same niches. Neither Infinity nor Centrum have ever found any indication of native technological intelligence. Emphasis on the word 'native'. What they have found is extensive indications of outside technological life, specifically human life armed with time-line conveyors. Many areas of the planet, esp. those near deposits of useful minerals or esp. good arable land, are littered with the remains of high-tech towns, mines, farming and other signs of agriculture, and all if it apparently imported from some other timeline. All these settlements are abandoned. But quite a bit of equipment and records and other detritus were left behind, including actual conveyors in various states of repair (none working). At first, each faction thought they had found an abandoned project of the other. It rapidly became clear that things were not so simple. To begin with, the equipment in the abandoned settlements, as well as the architecture and other details, were high atypical of the technology base of either Homeline or Centrum. The conveyors worked on familiar principles, but were embodied in unusual form. Different designs, different circuitry, etc. The conveyors (and other equipment and buildings) tended to be built differently, too. The builders used relatively little steel, favoring bronze and other copper alloys. It quickly became apparent that they had taken copper metallurgy much further than either Homeline or Centrum, using alloys with many unfamiliar properties. Apparently, they had access to huge amounts of copper to work with, too, since they tended to make so many things out of it. The architecture of the empty settlements ran to columns and domes, the closest thing Infinity personnel compared them to was a cross between Classical Greek and Islamic architecture, all embodied in a mix of stone and copper alloys. The settlements tended to be laid out not in a rectilinear pattern but in great loops and ovals and circles. Roundabouts were common, in not one case in any settlement were any right-angle cross-roads found. Forensic analyses of the extensive ruins and remains indicated that they had been abandoned for at least 175-200 years. At that discovery, both Infinity and Centrum, who already been nervous about this time line, went bonkers. It appeared that someone had been using conveyor tech well before either of them, and had had access to technology comparable to Infinity/Homeline as well. Eventually, human remains were discovered, in graveyards and occasionally in other rubble or ruins, and it got a bit more mysterious. The builders had apparently been essentially human, but averaged 6'6" (female) and 7' (male) and were built in proportion. Better preserved remains indicated that they were not quite of any familiar racial/ethnic mix, though most certainly human. Extensive records were recovered, books, carvings, painting, all sorts of media, but were of no familiar language or alphabet. Electronic records were eventually recovered and played, but the voices spoke no language Infinity or Centrum knew, though a few linguists on Homeline suspected they might be hearing an Indo-European tongue, but one diverged early and 'aged' in a totally different direction than the familiar versions. Other linguists disagreed, the arguments continues unabated. There was no sign of why the settlements (dozens of them around the world) were abandoned, little indication of violence, and no sign of why they left so much behind. They had apparently been settled there for some time, to judge by the graveyards and other signs of habitation, perhaps several generations. If all this made Centrum and Infinity nervous (and it did), what made them semi-panicky was the discovery, on what on some timelines would be the island of Crete, or a half-finished projector complex. Further study indicated that yes, Breach-1 was indeed one of the timelines like Homeline and Centrum where projectors could be built and work. The timeline is named 'breach' by Infinity because it represents an indication of a massive breach of the Secret, albeit one that predates the Secret. The indication that timeline-traveling humans predated Infinity that much, and by that scale, has shaken Infinity to the core. Breach-1 is highly secret, Infinity maintains major research bases there, and orders have gone out to all personnel to be on the watch for other traces of the mystery-builders on other time lines. Centrum is just as nervous and paranoid, and a few quiet exchanges of information have occurred between both factions on the matter. __________________ HMS Overflow-For conversations off topic here.

03-07-2019, 05:42 AM	#3
SilvercatMoonpaw Join Date: Jun 2017	Re: Breach-1 My brain immediately went "Atlantis".

03-07-2019, 05:52 AM	#4
cptbutton Join Date: Jul 2007	Re: Breach-1 I misread the title and was expecting something about some important royal birth being a breech birth, meaning death or disability with the ensuing changes in government, etc. __________________ -- Burma!

03-07-2019, 08:43 AM	#6
Flyndaran Untagged Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon	Re: Breach-1 Or perhaps their remains, material and bodies, were "translated" into forms that could exist in the moved timeline. __________________ Beware, poor communication skills. No offense intended. If offended, it just means that I failed my writing skill check.

03-07-2019, 05:02 PM	#7
Apollonian Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Shoreline, WA (north of Seattle)	Re: Breach-1 Or this timeline, despite otherwise appearing mundane, has some strange phenomenon that removes sapient life every couple hundred years. Infinity and Centrum have discovered it just in time for this to start happening again... Or the original settlers were involved in their own cross-temporal war, and the Infinity/Centrum intrusion is going to destabilize that struggle just as much it destabilizes their own... Or it's an extremely strange and disturbing myth parallel, as Infinity discovers when a speculative fiction writer on Homeline starts producing stories that match Breach-1's details. All evidence (and a terribly thorough investigation) points to the writer not having any knowledge of Breach-1's actual existence. Infinity is torn on whether they should shut the writer down, or keep a hands-off posture and see if the writer produces some actionable intelligence...

03-07-2019, 05:53 PM	#8
Flyndaran Untagged Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon	Re: Breach-1 The biggest fear, I'd imagine, is that something could obliterate a cross-time society with just enough warning for nearly everyone to high tail it away without sign of resistance or violence. __________________ Beware, poor communication skills. No offense intended. If offended, it just means that I failed my writing skill check.

03-07-2019, 06:44 PM	#9
ericthered Hero of Democracy Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: far from the ocean	Re: Breach-1 If projectors work (or appear to work) on Breach-1 and both infinity and Centrum can reach it, I expect a mad scramble for the world to ensue. Both sides eagerly scoop up as much technology as they can and do their best to ensure that neither side can stay on Breach long enough to figure out how to build a projector there. If you fail, the other side can use the infamous conveyor bombs to attack your home-world. __________________ Be helpful, not pedantic Worlds Beyond Earth -- my blog Check out the PbP forum! If you don't see a game you'd like, ask me about making one!