Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 02-17-2019, 01:47 PM   #11
Madd Kossack 115
 
Join Date: Jul 2018
Default Re: Centrum Light/Dark Ideas

Quote:
Originally Posted by vicky_molokh View Post
No, I mean Johnny Walker and Jack Daniels of course. You said you're looking for names that are pun-like in relation to the original names of Soviet major persons.
...So by that explanation, is Bukharin some sort of alcoholic drink? Because I can't look it up on Google, and the puns I'm using are either related to similarities to the original names, or similarities to their name's usage in a matter of pop culture (for example, "Petronel" matches "Molotov" as sounding close to Petrol, i.e. Petrol Bomb = Molotov Cocktail, and "Volante" is "Kirov" because Volante means "Flying One", and, y'know, Kirov...)

I may come up with something for the Bukharin expy either today or over the week outside of my working hours (and trying to branch out to foreign names since they're a bit more common in Centrum, if the "Mohammad Chang" and "Goldstein" mentioned in the brief narrative of Infinite Worlds are anything to go by), and just want to make clear that I only want to distance from Russian/Slavic names to avoid confusion with the Soviets, to give more national variety with "Volante Kostroski" being the odd woman out in that sense, (and because a pre-existing thread on what names Centrum would have theorized that, among other things, Russians would likely be one of the last few nationalities integrated into Centrum's One World Government, as the Russian War was one of the few wars just before The Final War, and thus likely had to be seized by the still largely Anglo-Western Centrum, even if it's less "another world war" and more "superpower absorbing lesser warlord states after assimilating the rest of the world")

Last edited by Madd Kossack 115; 02-17-2019 at 05:30 PM.
Madd Kossack 115 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-18-2019, 02:22 AM   #12
vicky_molokh
GURPS FAQ Keeper
 
vicky_molokh's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
Default Re: Centrum Light/Dark Ideas

Quote:
Originally Posted by Madd Kossack 115 View Post
...So by that explanation, is Bukharin some sort of alcoholic drink? Because I can't look it up on Google, and the puns I'm using are either related to similarities to the original names, or similarities to their name's usage in a matter of pop culture (for example, "Petronel" matches "Molotov" as sounding close to Petrol, i.e. Petrol Bomb = Molotov Cocktail, and "Volante" is "Kirov" because Volante means "Flying One", and, y'know, Kirov...)
Бухарин looks extremely close to бухарик (a slang noun for an alcoholic), and to бухать (to booze). It's probably not the true etymology of the name, but it looks close enough for folk etymology to spring up.
__________________
Vicky 'Molokh', GURPS FAQ and uFAQ Keeper
vicky_molokh is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-18-2019, 09:08 PM   #13
Johnny1A.2
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Default Re: Centrum Light/Dark Ideas

Quote:
Originally Posted by Astromancer View Post
Might I suggest CentrumAlien. Centrum has evolved in a very different cultural world. Sometimes Centrum would seem evil and other times honorable and noble but in the end, they aren't all that easy to define. Centrum had a radically different history and assumptions. We see actions in the context of our experiences. We interpret actions as good or bad by our expectations. We know that surgeons will amputate a limb to save a life. But if we only knew that someone had cut off a man's arm but had absolutely no idea why what would we say then?

Similarly, actions we have reason to see as helpful and useful might seem insane and brutal to Centrum. I met a woman once who saw Oxfam as evil because they bought grain in famine stricken nations. I explained that simply sending grain ruined those farmers that had grain crops and made less food available in the long run. Oxfam bought the local grain to promote fewer famines in the long run. She thought they could have done that in a less sorted way. Centrum conically sees Homeline as likely to be insane. Predicting the behavior of someone who is certain you are dangerously insane.

Centrum, because they think Homeline is insane, acts in a way that seems insane to Homeline.
Of course, there's also the POV of the natives of the various time lines Centrum and Infinity fight across, like the proxy-war states of the Cold War. From their POV, both Infinity and Centrum are likely to look like enemies, though one may be far preferable to the other.
__________________
HMS Overflow-For conversations off topic here.
Johnny1A.2 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-19-2019, 01:00 PM   #14
Astromancer
 
Astromancer's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
Default Re: Centrum Light/Dark Ideas

Quote:
Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2 View Post
Of course, there's also the POV of the natives of the various timelines Centrum and Infinity fight across, like the proxy-war states of the Cold War. From their POV, both Infinity and Centrum are likely to look like enemies, though one may be far preferable to the other.
If the natives of a timeline can play Centrum and Homeline off against each other either someone has seriously slipped up or that timeline is more dangerous than supposed.
__________________
Per Ardua Per Astra!


Ancora Imparo
Astromancer is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-19-2019, 01:22 PM   #15
johndallman
Night Watchman
 
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
Default Re: Centrum Light/Dark Ideas

Quote:
Originally Posted by Madd Kossack 115 View Post
Centrum Dark, meanwhile, throws those saving graces out the window as a full-on villain that's Reich-5 levels of flagrantly, blatantly, "not even trying to justify your interventions on Alternates as 'humanitarian aid', but because you're landgrabbing bastards with larger weapons" evil, and Centrum Light goes on to emphasize its more egalitarian and uplifting traits, even if it means learning to relax its originally rigid sense of order.
In my Infinite Cabal campaign, the Cabalist PCs, who are mostly from the early 18th century, didn't have much trouble understanding Centrum. They simply regarded them as empire builders, and that view worked fairly well.

Centrum didn't want to wipe out or enslave native populations, which makes them less evil than Reich-5; there are plenty of worlds with no population to use for resources. They did want every populated world to move towards their style of government, but they were smart enough not to try to do that by war; they took a fairly long view.

Their empire-building slowed down a lot when they made peace with Infinity, and that was largely the PCs' work. Investigating where the Homeline Echoes come from revealed the possibility of a weapon that would destroy worldlines, and that was enough to make both Centrum and Infinity re-think their attitude to their conflict.
johndallman is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 02-19-2019, 10:11 PM   #16
Johnny1A.2
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Default Re: Centrum Light/Dark Ideas

Quote:
Originally Posted by Astromancer View Post
If the natives of a timeline can play Centrum and Homeline off against each other either someone has seriously slipped up or that timeline is more dangerous than supposed.
True, that's the campaign default, but realistically, it's only a matter of time before the Secret starts leaking. Centrum and Infinity may be competent, and their personnel well trained...but people are people, and life is life. That Secret is coming out, one way or another, at least on some time lines.

A while back somebody posited the world of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. as a timeline, and posited what would happen if U.N.C.L.E. discovered Infinity and or Centrum. It's a reasonable suggestion, and it would happen on more than one world eventually.
__________________
HMS Overflow-For conversations off topic here.
Johnny1A.2 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-20-2019, 12:53 PM   #17
Astromancer
 
Astromancer's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
Default Re: Centrum Light/Dark Ideas

Quote:
Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2 View Post
True, that's the campaign default, but realistically, it's only a matter of time before the Secret starts leaking. Centrum and Infinity may be competent, and their personnel well trained...but people are people, and life is life. That Secret is coming out, one way or another, at least on some time lines.

A while back somebody posited the world of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. as a timeline, and posited what would happen if U.N.C.L.E. discovered Infinity and or Centrum. It's a reasonable suggestion, and it would happen on more than one world eventually.
Having U.N.C.L.E., Starfleet, or whoever John Steed worked for, discover either Centrum, Homeline, or the Cabal, and get loose in the multiverse, would be a fantastic campaign.
__________________
Per Ardua Per Astra!


Ancora Imparo
Astromancer is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-20-2019, 01:04 PM   #18
Flyndaran
Untagged
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
Default Re: Centrum Light/Dark Ideas

Would you believe, "I would prefer to see Agent 86 and 99 wander the multiverse?"
__________________
Beware, poor communication skills. No offense intended. If offended, it just means that I failed my writing skill check.
Flyndaran is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-20-2019, 03:09 PM   #19
Astromancer
 
Astromancer's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
Default Re: Centrum Light/Dark Ideas

Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
Would you believe, "I would prefer to see Agent 86 and 99 wander the multiverse?"
The chief would have felt safer.
__________________
Per Ardua Per Astra!


Ancora Imparo
Astromancer is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-20-2019, 04:55 PM   #20
Madd Kossack 115
 
Join Date: Jul 2018
Default Re: Centrum Light/Dark Ideas

Well, this certainly blew up while I got side-tracked again. I have gotten almost all of the "Centrum-ized" names changed up (the only one I'm not sure of is Bukharin, which I'll get to later). I'll start by showing the list of Soviet names that I've converted to Centrum names (and a list of their Gender and Nationality - or at least, what counts as a "nationality" under a OWG like Centrum):

* Molotov = Petronel “The Pounder” Stryker (Female, South African)
* Trotsky = David Bronstein (Male, Secular Jewish)
* Tukachevsky = Cornelius Quraishi (Male, Anglo-Arabian)
* Yezhov = Sef Almawt (Male, Egyptian-Arabian)
* Voroshilov = Clement Chatham (Male, Pure Anglo)
* Kirov = Volante Kostroski (Female, Italian-Slavic)
* Shilapnikov = Alexis Schlappi (Female, Swiss-German, and possibly an Outtimer who was recruited by the Interworld Service)

Looking at the list now, I actually think that Bukharin's Centrum Expy should be at least partially Asian, as I've covered most of the other nationalities that make up Centrum society.

I'm still getting the hang of this site, so I'll post this, and come back to respond to the quotes around it, as I can't figure out how to install a quote when I start drafting a general response post.
Madd Kossack 115 is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
centrum, infinite worlds

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 05:57 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.