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Old 06-12-2020, 01:24 AM   #1681
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Default Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels

In De Chancie, the current year is a vaguely recognizable 2000 where computers are exploding in importance. In this history, Alan Turing uncovered a fundamental logical principle tying models to the things they simulate. Serious mathematicians called it Commutative Simulation. Everyone else calls it actual magic.

Commutative Simulation is a set of principles that allow a computer program's simulation of the world to actually alter the real world. This is limited by the resolution of the simulation, the size thereof, and the energy powering the computer. In principle, it's even possible to do the work with just hand-written math, though anything practical to do by hand is nearly undetectable.

This was studied intensely for decades, and finally reached fruition in 1990. What had previously been the purview of private research institutions and government black labs reached consumer's hands in the form of the (inevitably-named) MERLIN-PC (Micro Electronic Linear Information Networking Personal Computer). Developed in this world's computing nexus (the Silicon Moor) of Chester, UK, the computer allowed a skilled programmer to make a flower bloom, a match ignite, or a slight breeze to blow about the room, or similar trivial effects.

Ten years on, and the consequences of this sort of magical workings undergoing exponential growth are still being discovered...
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Old 06-12-2020, 02:24 PM   #1682
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Default Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels

Ok, Kong-4 has the animation process down to a science, using it widely and versatilely for a generation.

Somebody's tried to reanimate a human corpse. Probably many somebodies. What happens when they do? More to the point, I get that it's a Weird Parallel but the results of that experiment are likely to be culture-shaking no matter what they are.
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Old 06-12-2020, 03:30 PM   #1683
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Default Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels

Lovecraft's: Herbert West-Reanimator immediately springs to mind. It has numerous ways to go with the concept.
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Old 06-26-2020, 05:38 AM   #1684
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In Ronald-1 (changed from Ameglia when no one would get the Hitchhiker's Guide reference), domestic cattle are genetically identical to Baseline cattle but sentient and capable of speech, and highly insistent that they should be raised as farm animals, killed, and fed to humans. The belief might be religious, but even "atheist" cattle will be adamant about this.

This has caused a whole lot of philosophical debate, which started getting political when major Baseline food companies got word of it.

It only got worse when Ronald-2 was discovered, where cattle is also sentient, but militantly opposed to being eaten and extremely paranoid about the prospect. (Consider dusting off your old Traveller books here.)

Trying to think up one based on the phantom time hypothesis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_time_hypothesis). maybe a 297-year time loop?

Last edited by zarawesome; 07-03-2020 at 02:06 PM.
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Old 07-20-2020, 07:23 AM   #1685
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Abbott

In this timeline, all proper nouns sound exactly like common words and phrases. The locals seem to be able to keep track of this no problem, though initial scouts were beyond confused.

"Now, when you get to the clinic, tell them you want to see Doctor Who."
"That's what you're so supposed to tell me!"
"No, the man's name is Who!"
"Look, let's start over. I go that way until I reach which street?"
"No, What Street."
"That's what I'm asking! I walk until I reach which street?"
"No, you turn right on What Street and walk until you reach Which Street!"
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Old 07-20-2020, 03:35 PM   #1686
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Originally Posted by TGLS View Post
Abbott

In this timeline, all proper nouns sound exactly like common words and phrases. The locals seem to be able to keep track of this no problem, though initial scouts were beyond confused.

"Now, when you get to the clinic, tell them you want to see Doctor Who." ...
LOL! I remember when I finally found "Who's on first" on YouTube so I could share this with my late wife.
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Old 07-20-2020, 04:11 PM   #1687
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Medusa-7

Medusa-7 is a Q5 timeline (TL4; normal mana) where every 'human' woman is actually a descendant of the Gorgons. While they appear to be beautiful human women, they are capable of shedding their human form to take on a beautiful medusa form that is capable of transforming men into stone with its gaze and capable of poisoning men with its bite (the gaze and the poison does not work on medusa women). Despite their unusual nature, they are capable of reproducing with human men (even human men from other timelines). The human men of the timeline are very respectful of women, as any human man that lacked proper respect was turned into statuary, though any medusa is capable of turning them back through a second use of her stone gaze if they wish.

Medusa-7 is one of those timelines that gives Infinity nightmares because their world is plagued with infrequent banestorms (a dozen small banestorms every century) that transport the women to timelines from Q3 to Q7. While Medusa-7 is a magical timeline, the gaze and the poison of the medusa are not magic dependent, meaning that the Medusas of every timeline may have actually been based on real life events (though mythologized over the centuries). In fact, some Infinity researchers hypothesize that the original legend of Perseus may have involved Perseus rescuing and marrying a medusa and believe that her female line descendants could still exist on Homeline.
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Old 10-04-2020, 07:29 AM   #1688
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Magus is a TL 7 worldline that is Infinity is happy to promote as the "magical destination for crosstime tourists!"

At first, it seems like this world is a high-mana wonderland... but scouts were able to show conclusively that their normal test spells and devices don't work here. And closer inspection shows that despite planetwide confidence in the existence of real magic, every great mage is nothing more than a slight-of-hand expert.

Homeline was ready to write the world off as just a cultural divergence (still useful as a source of plausible deniability), but the statistics still seemed odd. Surely some of the "magicians" of the worldline would have failed spectacularly enough to end up in history books -- even if the culture might have justified it as the spirits abandoning them. Instead, such failures were all but nonexistant, with a long history of stage mages and other confidence performers leading long and flawless careers.

In fact, Serendipity and Luck are learnable advantages here. The effect is only local, but nonetheless powerful. Gambling, naturally, is no major institution on this worldline -- the house always loses. Faith is likewise in a state of heavy syncretism. Every possible belief system has someone who demonstrated its ability to alter reality.

That said, this isn't merely a world of superstition. Scientists here have tried to understand magic, and ultimately come to the conclusion that it is a different "magesterium" from scientific thought. Magicians have submitted to scientific testing, but they simply succeed well enough by chance to have inconclusive results the majority of the time.

Today, visitors pop over for a long vacation to study "magical theory" that satisfies them (they do well when they try it out in class), yet is no threat to the status quo back on Homeline.

Last edited by PTTG; 10-04-2020 at 03:18 PM.
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Old 11-02-2020, 02:12 PM   #1689
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in One In A Million, aka Rapture-5, 99.9999% of humanity vanished about six months ago, leaving a world population of 8,700 scattered across the planet. (Theories abound - maybe these eight thousand were banestormed from another parallel, but why is the infrastructure all here?)

Small enclaves managed to find each other before the full collapse of long-range communications, but there are certainly a few people thinking they're the last representative of their kind on earth.
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Old 11-02-2020, 02:40 PM   #1690
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Default Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels

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Small enclaves managed to find each other before the full collapse of long-range communications, but there are certainly a few people thinking they're the last representative of their kind on earth.
Wow that would be harsh. If the depopulation was evenly distributed then even the largest cities would have at most a few people in them. It seems unlikely that many of these random folks would have the skills necessary to find each other or even survive very long on their own. If the remaining population is evenly distributed among age demographics a number of those 8700 will be too young or too old to last on their own for very long.
I love the concept, but I think I'd dial it back by a couple zeros to give the "remainers" a fighting chance.
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