[IW] Queries: Recent echoes, and some implications

[CoyoteGestalt]

Some questions on Echoes:
1. Parachronics: Do we know if there are echoes with dates less than 30 years behind Homeline? I don't recall seeing any mention of it in the book, but I don't recall it ever specifically saying there aren't. I'm assuming not, but it raises a question: What happens when an echo reaches the 1990s and its Van Zandt starts experimenting with parachronics? Does it work, and found a new Infinity, and a new world with parachronic capability? Or does it fail, history diverges, and the echo becomes a parallel?

2. World-jumpers: We know that a handful of capable psionic world-jumpers have been found on homeline. Does Infinity also recruit their alternate selves from close parallels (since we know that the usual restrictions on outworld recruitment are waived for jumpers)? What about their alternate selves on echoes – taking them away could cause a divergence, but leaving them could prematurely reveal the existence of Infinity! (The same question could apply to other sorts of psychics.)

3. Uniqueness: Does the existence of echoes mean that A. nobody from homeline can have this disadvantage, B. that Homeliners can have this disadvantage, and thus don't exist on an echo despite it being an echo, or C. that a Homeliner can have this disadvantage, but it means that they don't have alternates except on echoes, who also have Unique and would probably disappear if the echo shifted? (In traditional GURPS style, the literal definition of “unique” is not necessarily the same thing as the disadvantage Unique.)

Is anything about this written somewhere, and I've missed it? If not, does anyone have any interesting theories?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by CoyoteGestalt

Some questions on Echoes:
1. Parachronics: Do we know if there are echoes with dates less than 30 years behind Homeline? I don't recall seeing any mention of it in the book, but I don't recall it ever specifically saying there aren't. I'm assuming not, but it raises a question: What happens when an echo reaches the 1990s and its Van Zandt starts experimenting with parachronics? Does it work, and found a new Infinity, and a new world with parachronic capability? Or does it fail, history diverges, and the echo becomes a parallel?

2. World-jumpers: We know that a handful of capable psionic world-jumpers have been found on homeline. Does Infinity also recruit their alternate selves from close parallels (since we know that the usual restrictions on outworld recruitment are waived for jumpers)? What about their alternate selves on echoes – taking them away could cause a divergence, but leaving them could prematurely reveal the existence of Infinity! (The same question could apply to other sorts of psychics.)

3. Uniqueness: Does the existence of echoes mean that A. nobody from homeline can have this disadvantage, B. that Homeliners can have this disadvantage, and thus don't exist on an echo despite it being an echo, or C. that a Homeliner can have this disadvantage, but it means that they don't have alternates except on echoes, who also have Unique and would probably disappear if the echo shifted? (In traditional GURPS style, the literal definition of “unique” is not necessarily the same thing as the disadvantage Unique.)

Is anything about this written somewhere, and I've missed it? If not, does anyone have any interesting theories?

1. I'm not sure about exactly 30 years but theory has it that no echo can create parachronics due to technobabble reasons. The existence of Centrum a mere 3 quanta away is troublesome for thsi theory. Van Zandt invents something else in every known echo.

2. Never been mentioned that I know of. Few echoes are person for person though.

3. Usually Unique is for Time Travel games and irrelevant to IW. Nobody gets erased by history changing.

I can tell you that except for e23 works like Britannica-6 there is no more official material for the IW setting.

[Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2]

Re: the world-jumpers-on-echoes query ...

Reich-5 learned about other realities when a Homeline world-jumper was captured. They found the "local" counterpart of the world-jumper and his family, all of whom had the world-jumper gene. So it is feasible.

[CoyoteGestalt]

I guess part of it is that I'm a little fuzzy on the exact difference between parallels and echoes, perhaps. My understanding is that an echo matches, as far as anyone can tell, Homeline history at some past point (or Centrum's, for their one known echo... I wonder if Shikaku-Mon has any echos?), whereas a parallel diverged at some point in past history (whether close (Buddy Holly took the bus) or far (Pangaea split up differently)). If something happens to change the course of events in a echo, presumably due to outside interference, my understanding is that it drifts into a new quantum, and becomes a parallel.
So, if an echo reaches the 1990s and parachronic technology is not invented, it's diverging - not founding a major multinational corporation is certainly a change in history - so has it just converted itself into a parallel spontaneously? I feel like it must have said something about this somewhere in the book, but I can't find it.
I did notice that the random echo generation table doesn't produce any dates after 1995, though.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by CoyoteGestalt

I guess part of it is that I'm a little fuzzy on the exact difference between parallels and echoes, perhaps. My understanding is that an echo matches, as far as anyone can tell, Homeline history at some past point (or Centrum's, for their one known echo....

How exact the match is is variable and the change point should not be assumed to an outside event. It's _something_ different happening but what the changepoint is usually seen as a natural event locally.

As an example look at Britannica-6 (an E23 pdf) up until the changepoint it seems to be a person to person exact duplicate of Homeline. After the changepoint (survival of a relatively minor British royal on our timeline) it is 100% different. No one has a dupe who was born after the change date.. If Infinity understood _why_ they'd probably have some sort of deep insight on parallelling.

As a particularly weird example look at the United States of Lizardia. It is neither a perfect dupe except for everyone being an evolved dinosaurian but neither is it any sort of reasonable alternate where a different sapient species evolved.

Rather it's a place where evolved dinosaurs call the most populous state on the North American continent "The United States of America" (in recognizable English) but the President isn't named Obama. A peculiarly close parallel but not exact even given one big exception.

Echoes changing Quanta because of Centrum intervention is something that they pull off sometimes but rarely enough that it can't be easy and probably isn't an exact science.

So exact parallels unto a certain date happens but other places that are merely close or somewhat close or only close in a certain way happen too. You've got a whole spectrum.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

As an example look at Britannica-6 (an E23 pdf)

As a particularly weird example look at the United States of Lizardia

Those aren't echoes, they're parallels. AFAICT in order for it go be a echo it does have to be a perfect copy of Homeline in a past era.

[Captain-Captain]

Originally Posted by CoyoteGestalt

Some questions on Echoes:
1. Parachronics: Do we know if there are echoes with dates less than 30 years behind Homeline? I don't recall seeing any mention of it in the book, but I don't recall it ever specifically saying there aren't. I'm assuming not, but it raises a question: What happens when an echo reaches the 1990s and its Van Zandt starts experimenting with parachronics? Does it work, and found a new Infinity, and a new world with parachronic capability? Or does it fail, history diverges, and the echo becomes a parallel?

2. World-jumpers: We know that a handful of capable psionic world-jumpers have been found on homeline. Does Infinity also recruit their alternate selves from close parallels (since we know that the usual restrictions on outworld recruitment are waived for jumpers)? What about their alternate selves on echoes – taking them away could cause a divergence, but leaving them could prematurely reveal the existence of Infinity! (The same question could apply to other sorts of psychics.)

3. Uniqueness: Does the existence of echoes mean that A. nobody from homeline can have this disadvantage, B. that Homeliners can have this disadvantage, and thus don't exist on an echo despite it being an echo, or C. that a Homeliner can have this disadvantage, but it means that they don't have alternates except on echoes, who also have Unique and would probably disappear if the echo shifted? (In traditional GURPS style, the literal definition of “unique” is not necessarily the same thing as the disadvantage Unique.)

Is anything about this written somewhere, and I've missed it? If not, does anyone have any interesting theories?

Don't have the book at hand, but I think it was stated that no echoes whose calendar year is later than date X have EVER been located.

Since I do have access to Characters (not having access in this case means not being willing to get up from the computer go to my bedroom find IW and look up something mentioned in it somewhere) A unique character is found ONLY in one universe. If Ed Kurouski, the auto shop teacher at Fraklin D. Wilson High is Unique, you won't find him on ANY other Earth.

Remember that being Unique is ONLY a disadvantage on worlds where time erasure is possible. The unique character won't recall a time paradox and could be erased by a severe change in history, being forgotten by everyone. it's worth 0 points in any other world. (B.160)

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Those aren't echoes, they're parallels. AFAICT in order for it go be a echo it does have to be a perfect copy of Homeline in a past era.

But Brittannica-6 would have been taken for and may even have been an echo until it hit its' changedate. After that it wasn't even that much of a parallel. Other things taken for echoes probably weren't as well.

[Frost]

From my reading of the material all parallels start off as echoes and (normally) diverge through a chaotic process at some point in their history. Given the link between conventional conveyor/ projector type parachronics and an absolute date all echoes will eventually diverge c1995 ultimately becoming close parallels if they have not already done so.

Centrum's ability to shift parallels is briefly stated to be based on a set of rules of thumb that (sometimes) permit them to predict the nature and timing of changes that will shift new parallels in favourable directions. Naturally occurring parallels don't necessarily exhibit this shift. This might explain the clustering of close (or at least closer) around quanta 5 and 6.