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Old 09-15-2017, 01:01 AM   #481
Prince Charon
 
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Default Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels

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More than perks, but Professor X is beyond a PHD.
OK, so it's not immediately worldbreaking, but it will have very significant effects on the world in the long term. Might start a thread on the consequences of powerful psi becoming fairly common (not directly related to this, though).
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Old 09-15-2017, 12:41 PM   #482
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Default Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels

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Hpmeline is far ahead of us in aerospace tech.

See p.14 where Special Operations has conveyors built into "armored TL9 Icarus sub-orbital VTOL gunships". One of these can deliver up to 24 fully equipped Spec Ops division soldiers and all their gear anywhere on Earth(s) within 4 hours. That probably includes fuelling and mission planning.

Just "armored" and "VTOL gunship" is about 2 steps beyond us. Adding the "sub-orbital" is a lot farther than that.
A couple manned TL 9 sub-orbitals ships is far more capability than I thought, but still well below major institutionalized project.
Meh, not much change. I guess it's been too long since I read the black ops ultra tech sections of the Infinite Worlds book. My mistake.
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Old 09-16-2017, 12:04 PM   #483
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Default Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels

Rube is the worldline home to what has been tentatively named the species Homo Stultus. As the name implies, the species template has 8 IQ and a number of mental disadvantages, from mild Ham-Fisted to Gullible to just generally low Will and Per. Physically, they look just like Homo Sapiens.

The funny thing is that they're TL8 at the current date of 2000 CE, and have had a historical path not at all unlike Homeline did. The individuals were not the same, of course, but nations rose and followed their homeline-like paths, while being distant enough to preclude normal Inertia at work. If intelligence doesn't matter that much for the fate of nations, what then is it for?
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Old 09-16-2017, 01:05 PM   #484
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Default Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels

Try this parallel. People generally remember a few lives before their own. This tends these people to believe in reincarnation as firmly as we believe in the sky and earth. (Some Cabalists suggest Reincarnation isn't needed to explain the phenomena, but their counter theories freak most folks out).

The vast majority of people gain clear memories of from three to eight past lives (1D6+2) during puberty. Skills seem to be remembered as well. Mental advantages seem to get remembered as well, but mental disadvantages are less commonly remembered. Remembering no past lives is seen as a handicap, a few people remember larger numbers of past lives. More people remember past lives closer in time to them, but there are verified (I don't know how) cases of life memories from several thousand years ago. Unusual Background advantages might be required for both larger numbers of past lives and rare or especially useful to the present individual past lives. Past lives bringing valuable skills, vital national secrets, or the way to gain hidden treasures stowed away for future lives, would all require the Unusual Background advantage.

The average person gains about IQ*5 character points worth of skills and mental advantages per past life. An average kid with a GURPS IQ of 12 and 5 past lives would get 300 points to work with. These skills and Mental advantages would have to come from that life. Thus a Breton Classics instructor born 1845 died 1912, could be an excellent source for several languages and high skills in literature and writing, but a poor source for Kendo or Judo. Similarly a Japanese martial artist born 1695 died 1763 wouldn't be a great source for TL7 metallurgy or computer programing, forget Latin.

As people remember being male, female, rich, poor, different races, cultures, and life paths, most of these people tend to be very tolerant (except when they are profoundly intolerant, some bad memories stick) and to be bisexual (been there, done that, loved it once try it again;-)).

Death penalties aren't really seen as a big deal. It's really a sort of exile.

Suicide is a form of escape known to work.

An out time team has been approached by a teenaged boy (he's about 14) who claims to have been from Homeline in a former life. He was killed here by a Centrum agent who had infiltrated the Icops!

How do you deal with this security leak (other agents were killed and will probably get reborn here) and with tracking down the centrum mole?
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Old 09-16-2017, 03:43 PM   #485
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Default Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels

My first thoughts weren't flattering, then it hit me. A perfect way to explain that super combat effective pacifist. They may even be haunted a bit by the memories without that moral quandary of actually having killed people. That's not unimportant to some players.
They're trying to pay for the literal bad karma.

I'm not so sure people would become so long sighted when they aren't now over a matter of years or decades. Especially since they only MAY transfer SOME of their present memories and none of their values at all.
I consider my memories to be what I am, but my values who I am. I don't think I'm alone on this.

But the argument just leads to cool gaming.
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Old 09-16-2017, 05:21 PM   #486
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Default Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels

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The vast majority of people gain clear memories of from three to eight past lives (1D6+2) during puberty.
If I were doing this, I'd just peg it at 5 and make Reawakened a leveled (dis)advantage for those with more or less.

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How do you deal with this security leak (other agents were killed and will probably get reborn here)?
Recruit or Coventry. Or send the poor sod to Vanish if you're worried that he'll just come back by killing him self.
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Old 09-17-2017, 05:29 AM   #487
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Default Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels

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Rube is the worldline home to what has been tentatively named the species Homo Stultus. As the name implies, the species template has 8 IQ and a number of mental disadvantages, from mild Ham-Fisted to Gullible to just generally low Will and Per. Physically, they look just like Homo Sapiens.

The funny thing is that they're TL8 at the current date of 2000 CE, and have had a historical path not at all unlike Homeline did. The individuals were not the same, of course, but nations rose and followed their homeline-like paths, while being distant enough to preclude normal Inertia at work. If intelligence doesn't matter that much for the fate of nations, what then is it for?
To be fair, almost no-one perfectly fits a base template, so there clearly would be smarter (and dumber) people on that worldline... unless you're saying they aren't - apart from the last sentence, it just seems like a world where the Great Man theory of history would be true, and vitally important.
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Warning, I have the Distractible and Imaginative quirks in real life.

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-- Tacitus

Five Earths, All in a Row. Updated 12/17/2022: Apocrypha: Bridges out of Time, Part I has been posted.
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Old 09-17-2017, 01:37 PM   #488
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Default Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels

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To be fair, almost no-one perfectly fits a base template, so there clearly would be smarter (and dumber) people on that worldline... unless you're saying they aren't - apart from the last sentence, it just seems like a world where the Great Man theory of history would be true, and vitally important.
A world like most horror fiction. Most people are oblivious morons, with some that would look somewhat normal here, but are exceptional there.
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Old 09-17-2017, 06:39 PM   #489
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If intelligence doesn't matter that much for the fate of nations, what then is it for?
IQ 8 is a vast improvement over animals. All it takes is a few geniuses witb IQ 10 or 11, and civilization and technology can progress.
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Old 09-17-2017, 10:43 PM   #490
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That's just it though. I personally believe that human intelligence is strongest in its collective sense; that history is the (mostly) wise striving of many individuals. If you dropped average IQ by some substantial fraction (accepting for a moment that both Intelligence Quotient and GURPS IQ are vast simplifications), and yet history was mostly the same, it would be a troubling question.

I feel the worldline might lead to an interestingly philosophical session, for all that it would be hilarious.
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