Nonhuman Timelines [Infinite Worlds]

[AlexanderHowl]

Within the Infinite Worlds setting, nonhuman timelines are fairly uncommon, which is fairly odd considering that humans should probably be fairly uncommon with any divergence that occurred more than two million years ago. I would like to make a compendium of nonhuman timelines that Centrum and Homeline have not yet discovered because their equations are biased towards human dominated timelines (in effect, any timeline discovered that did not evolve humans were probably caused by a happy accident of math). I will start.

Raccoon-1

Raccoon-1 is a timeline dominated by a TL10 civilization of sapient giant raccoons called the Cyttwt. The Cyttwt evolved on the North American continent from raccoon ancestors starting two million years ago and migrated into the Asian continent through the coastal routes during the glacial periods around 500,000 years ago. The Cyttwt developed agriculture around 50,000 years ago, but they did not develop metalworking until 10,000 years ago, when the advancement of their technology progressed more quickly. They reached TL5 around 2,000 years ago and TL10 around 1,000 years ago, when their technological progress slowed to a crawl, as they developed a world government. In the current era, the Cyttwt have spread throughout the Sol System and, starting 500 years ago, started sending nanostasis colony fleets to terraformable worlds in nearby systems.

The Cyttwt are the height of humans and possessed comparable intelligence, though they have fur and a bushy tail, until they upgraded their species through genetic engineering. Their society is matrilineal, matrifocal, and matriarchal, and their family groups practice polygamy and polyandry. Males leave their families to marry all of the same age group in an unrelated family and families accept males until they have sexual parity. Speciation through genetic engineering is forbidden in Cyttwt society, families of violators suffer sterilization, and digital intelligence is likewise forbidden due to a near singularity event that occurred 1,000 years ago that killed off 50% of the Cyttwt and which required orbital bombardment to stop.

The Cyttwt have recently been experimenting with exotic physics in the hope of creating a FTL drive and accidentally created a paratronic conveyor. The timeline, an uninhabited Q7, is a prime candidate for colonization, and the Cyttwt established an outpost and have been building a colony fleet for settlement (their conveyors only work beyond Saturn). Unknown to them, Centrum recently discovered the timeline as well, and is trying to figure out what to do about a timeline of hyperadvanced raccoons, not realizing that the Cyttwt are also immigrants.

[martinl]

Spiderness-1

Infinity and Centrum have both spent a lot of resources and personnel investigating this parallel. The nanotechnological research implications were very very tempting, and as reasonable precautions were taken the risk was considered well worth the anticipated reward.

Thus Spiderness-2 through Spiderness-8. Several of these have been hit with wide arrays of various WMDs, but none have lost the Spiderness designation.

All of these timelines are now quarantined with extreme prejudice. If you are detected traveling to one of these "elemental planes of spiders" an orbital conveyor will transit in above your expected position, nuke it, and self destruct.

Please forgive the twee DFRPG fluff... and is what that growing on your neck?

[warellis]

Originally Posted by martinl

Spiderness-1

Infinity and Centrum have both spent a lot of resources and personnel investigating this parallel. The nanotechnological research implications were very very tempting, and as reasonable precautions were taken the risk was considered well worth the anticipated reward.

Thus Spiderness-2 through Spiderness-8. Several of these have been hit with wide arrays of various WMDs, but none have lost the Spiderness designation.

All of these timelines are now quarantined with extreme prejudice. If you are detected traveling to one of these "elemental planes of spiders" an orbital conveyor will transit in above your expected position, nuke it, and self destruct.

Please forgive the twee DFRPG fluff... and is what that growing on your neck?

So what happens in Spiderness worldlines? Parasitic spiders?

[Dalillama]

Originally Posted by warellis

So what happens in Spiderness worldlines? Parasitic spiders?

The link explains it.

[aesir23]

Olduvai-1

While star charts show the current date to be sometime around the 1700s, Homo Sapiens never evolved on this world. Nor did Neanderthals, Denisovans, or other archaic Homo Sapiens.

Nevertheless, earlier hominids were every bit as successful in this timeline as on our own. Some evolutionary change has occurred, but species remarkably similar to Austraulopithicenes, Homo Erectus, and Homo Habilis have survived, along with many others unknown by Homeline paleo-anthropologists.

There are dozens of distinct species of upright, bipedal, tool-using apes in Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Americas (which they reached via land-bridge and ice-sheet during the last ice age). Only Antarctica and Oceania are free of native hominid species, although some pseudo-Homo Erectus tribes in Asia have begun to experiment with more and more sophisticated canoes. This is only one example of suprisingly late TL-0 technology beginning to emerge. Rumors of bows and arrows and the domestication of wolves are probably unfounded, but stone-blade technology among several species/tribes has advanced far beyond what any of these species were capable of on Homline.

Many other species of extinct mammal survive in this timeline as well, but whether or not this indicates that early humans played role in their extinction on other worlds is unknown.

Olduvai-1 has become something of a research wonderland for anthropologists and primatologists alike, but it has also raised some interesting questions about animal rights and "personhood" as well as the origins of human intelligence and consciousness.

[martinl]

Merlin-7

This variant of the Merlin timeline had a nuclear war that resulted in severe manaforming of the entire planet. There are no humans, the population is a mix of chimeras, manuplifted animals, and recently-mythical beings.

The entire southern hemisphere is under the iron-flippered control of the Penguin S.S.R., and the northern hemisphere is a post-manopalyptic political charlie foxtrot of epic proportions.

If you are hankering to run a Judge Dredd/My Little Pony/Peppa Pig crossover, or redo Mad Max where everyone is an anthropomorphic sphynx cat, or play out an epic war between steampunk badgerfolk and the magic hippy dippy sugarglider hivemind, this is the timeline for you.

[Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2]

Sluggy

This is one of those worlds that give people nightmares. Literally.

On Sluggy, vertebrate life never evolved. The most advanced form of life is a 10-15 cm slug-like mollusk that communicates with others of it's kind through exchanging slimes. These slugoids are by themselves as smart as a regular slug, but can cluster together to form more intelligent composite minds. A hundred in a big mound has IQ 10.

When illegal explorers discovered this world, they imediately tried to set up a base (a secret base on an unknown world has lots of potential profit). Most of the crew was devoured and their minds assimilated; only a couple escaped and went in screaming panic to Infinity. When Infinity sent a probe in, the collective slug intelligence attempted a telepathic attack, which failed only due to inexperience. The world was subsequently declared off-limits.

But now the Slug Collective has expanded to cover a continent, and has enough raw power to reach to other timelines with it's incomprehensible mollusc mind. Infinity's psychics and the Cabal are now engaged in a psychic war with the Slug Collective, whose interworld psychic attacks grow increasingly more sophisticated.

WMDs sent to Sluggy have no apparent effect, and no one sends people in for fear their minds will be assimilated. Meanwhile, the Slug Collective is slowly subverting minds on other worlds, seeking someone with the skills to cobble together some sort of parachronic device.

Sluggy wants to learn, even if it must devour the populations of worlds to do so ...

[Astromancer]

Fearie

This Q3 world line seems to be populated by the dominant Mythic Beings of the corresponding areas of Homeline. Ireland, Scotland, Wales, etc. are inhabited by Celtic day. Cornwall has Giants, England has Elves! Human sized and living as Feudal novels. For tiny elves try Germany. The USA has aliens ( Grey's, Nordica, Reptilians, heck even Vulcans!) Bigfoot creatures, and the various Native American Fay. The Arab lands have Djinni and Ifreets, Iran has Peris, much of the Balkans are infested with Vampires, and so on.

Government, diplomatic relationships, international trade, are all.... complicated.

[martinl]

Fimbulvinter-2

This regular-mana timeline is in the middle of an ice age. Humans evolved and prospered in the past, reaching approximate TL-4 about 400 years ago. Then the sun dimmed, the Great Ice advanced, and humanity was completely exterminated by the ice weasels.

The ice weasels, to a casual observer, seem to be engaged in endless rounds of cheerfully bloodthirsty viking-style raids against each other, but Infinity is pretty sure there is a higher level of political organization that is not obvious.

The ice weasels, in their part, are pretty sure the strange humans from the Outside who think they are good at hiding are not only full of tasty snacks, but are guarding a potential route to many many more humans who are in turn full of an unfathomable bounty of tasty snacks.

If they pull off a successful hijacking of a conveyor and the Queen of Frost and Shadow can magically duplicate its action an Ice Weasel parachronic power becomes inevitable.

Guard your most sensitive hit locations.

[Flyndaran]

Blob


This world is nearly identical to homeline of 3 million years BP. All except for the extraterrestrials that colonized Earth 50 years previously local time.

These aliens traveled by STL means having no access to superscience. But as they are a solid TL 10, this of course makes them quite dangerous if they were to gain public knowledge of parallel realities.

They are long lived amorphous beings capable of taking on memorized forms of a compatible same massed nature. But as they are experts at genetic modification, one of the first things they did when colonizing was adapt to the local environment and life.

This does create a disconnect between the those born before landing and those altered to fit Earth. The first see the planet and possibly parallels as dangers to control and/or neutralize.
Many of the younger generation see themselves just as much Earthling as "blob".

Recently, zoologists have discovered a few types of uncomfortably intelligent primates in Africa. This has sparked a debate on what if any rights these proto-sapients deserve.

What would happen if they suddenly encountered fully sapient human world jumpers?