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Old 12-10-2017, 03:16 PM   #331
Flyndaran
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Default Re: Lucy's Choice: Let's make Lucifer Parallels!

Idiocracy: for no known reason, each generation of complex animals suffer reduced cognitive function.

It has a nearby reality 100 million BCE where all complex life appears to be gaining intelligence. Some dinosaurs have reached primate levels on par with movie versions.
Hassle, because a rumor that conceiving here will lead to a smarter baby. No evidence for or against that has shown up, but people will still try.

Researchers don't know if these are examples of some kind of environmental or biologically innate cycle.
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Old 12-10-2017, 07:19 PM   #332
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Moreau-1

Moreau-1 is a Q5 parallel inhabited by a diverse array of successor subspecies to humanity. One hundred years ago (the equivalent of year 1842 on Homeline), an adaptive metamorphic virus was released during a conflict that caused humans to transform into humanoid versions of the last mammalian animal that they came into contact with. Every member of the successor subspecies is a carrier of the adaptive metamorphic virus, which meant that the agents of the penetration team that suffered transformation were sent back to Moreau-1 after Infinity discovered that they could not prevent the virus from spreading except through quarantine.

The inhabitants of Moreau-1 are immune to the adaptive metamorphic virus and are capable of interbreeding despite apparent subspecies barrier due to the fact that their reproductive systems are unchanged except when required to bare young of their subspecies (children of two different subspecies take after their mother's subspecies). After fifty years of genocide warfare that reduced the successor subspecies population from 5 billion to 500 million, the subspecies of Moreau-1 are starting to rebuilt their technological infrastructure. The different subspecies have their disagreements (especially between the herbivores and the omnivores), but they want to avoid the genocidal warfare of the past.

The population of Moreau-1 has grown to 1 billion over the course of the past fifty years. Normally, Infinity would seal the coordinates and try to forget the timeline, but their former agents in Moreau-1 have recently reported that they have discovered evidence of conveyor research before the change. While they have stolen or destroyed everything related to that research, they warn Infinity that the inhabitants of Moreau-1 might start exploring conveyor research soon, meaning that they could potentially transmit the adaptive metamorphic virus to other timelines.

Last edited by AlexanderHowl; 12-10-2017 at 07:30 PM.
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Old 05-22-2018, 04:05 PM   #333
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Default Re: Lucy's Choice: Let's make Lucifer Parallels!

A worldline that was once high-mana saw an abrupt mana failure. The sudden failure of mana brought the society down from roughly TL4+5 to merely TL4... and the associated population collapse brought much of the remaining civilization down to TL3.

Though many magical monsters faded away, just as many nonmagical foes found that without magic, the cities and fortresses were easy targets.
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Old 10-18-2018, 01:35 PM   #334
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A Zika-like virus (called Blue Fever, due to the frequently-reported pallor of recent infectees) became airborne and developed the ability to become latent.

Additionally, the neurological issues the virus caused in host's offspring included traits GURPS would call Bestial, Loner, and Bloodlust, as well as a number of other violent disadvantages. Actual intellect (as in IQ scores) isn't limited, but the victims are almost impossible to educate, so it's usually low. These issues take years to appear, however, and the first four or five years of a child's life seem normal.

The early years (starting around 1990) saw this as a public health crisis but not an existential one. However, as the disease spread and the difficulty of controlling and caring for an increasingly large population of violent "Blue Children" became clear, communities started forcing hosts and their offspring out.

This became increasingly superstitious as long-distance travel and trade started to fail.

It's currently 2021. The population of homeless "Blues" is soaring. They are not really able to cooperate much (aside from huddling together for warmth and maybe scavanging together), and when they are forced together they fight among themselves without apparent cause. When not contained, they wander, scavange resources, and so on.

About 70% of the non-Blue population is infected (a test has been developed), and the population is about 6.5 billion and stable to declining. Housing developments, cities, and organizations create infection-free zones that are becoming increasingly authoritarian as the alternative -- being subjected to a mob and being doomed to produce subhuman offspring -- is terrifying.

Though there's no scientific evidence to support it, some groups believe that only women can be carriers of the Blue Fever, and these groups tend to be patriarchal. That infections continue despite all the authoritarian control of the community's women is taken as a sign of insurrection.

As the disease doesn't conclusively appear until the age of four or five, and government care centers often take in unwanted blues for five to ten years, many blues enter the "wild" at least able to walk and survive. Yes, these centers are seen by some as "throwing away resources," but in the past decades noone has managed to compellingly argue for a genocide of Blues on a national level, outside of informal arrangements in particularly hard-hit countries. North Korean Blues, for instance, aren't killed, but instead sent South.

Playing games here: Not appropriate for zombie apocalypse lovers, unless you're running it as a game where you really don't want to kill the zombies; Blues are technically human and, while violent, have otherwise human intellect. They occasionally create art, for instance. They're just liable to strike out in immediate bloodlust for unpredictable reasons, have crude language, and struggle with all symbology. They can use tools and weapons effectively, making them all the more terrifying.

More interesting are the enclaves, which come in various kinds. The largest non-Blue populations are infected adults and their normal offspring (about 5-10% of children born to infected parents show no obvious symptoms, though they do carry the disease). These people live in cities and towns not unlike modern ones, but with some infrastructure for dealing with the Blue problem. Most buildings have barred windows, shuttered doors, and heavy reinforcement, among other things. Goods are largely local (the TL is therefore stuck on early 8 instead of mid-to-late-8 as it is in our TL).

Wealthy regions in some cities, as well as newly-built communities and corporate campuses, are often planned as Fever-free zones, with only tested clean citizens. However, the wealthy are always able to buy their way in. The most effective communities are the ideological-but-not-obsessive compounds, where religious groups are willing to listen to scientific advice about the plague, but are united by ideology enough to make harsh sacrifices. These groups tend to develop odd folkways quickly, and due to their isolation, maintain a lower TL of about 7.

It's a bit soft for a hell world, but it's pretty much inevitable: the population is crashing and society is breaking apart.

Last edited by PTTG; 10-19-2018 at 02:19 AM.
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Old 10-19-2018, 02:02 PM   #335
Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2
 
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Default Re: Lucy's Choice: Let's make Lucifer Parallels!

Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
Moreau-1

Moreau-1 is a Q5 parallel inhabited by a diverse array of successor subspecies to humanity. One hundred years ago (the equivalent of year 1842 on Homeline), an adaptive metamorphic virus was released during a conflict that caused humans to transform into humanoid versions of the last mammalian animal that they came into contact with.
Which means that the vast majority of the Moreau victims would be domesticated-animal furries, some semi-domesticated, and a small population of exotics (mainly from zookeepers and veternarians, plus a few who had contact with wild animals).

Only a very tiny number would have avoided change at first. But even the most determined zoophobe can't avoid all mammalian contact
================================================== ===
And now my contribution ...

Adversary
.
This world has had ONE example of supernatural manifestation, a clear case of divine power witnessed by the entire world. And it has not answered a single theological question.

Early 1953, the Korean "Police Action" has grown. Someone authorized nuclear weapons to use against someone, but no one knows who. The weapons detonated in Seoul and Pyongyang and the American Fleet and a Chinese Red Army base ...

And all over the world, The Voice spoke, heard and understood by everyone everywhere, stating - "YOU HAVE SINNED. IF WAR IS YOUR DESIRE, THEN WAR YOU SHALL HAVE. FAIR AND BALANCED WAR. UNTIL JUSTICE IS SERVED."

Then the Adversaries arrived. And in 24 hours 40% of the human race was dead.

Every human has an Adversary. The Adversaries are endless in form and ability - humans, animals, monsters of legend, unique horrors.

But they have common traits. An Adversary is compelled to hunt and kill it's specific human, although they don't really care about collateral damage. They can sense their target anywhere. They are compelled to kill their target up-close and personal, no use of poisons or WMDs or sniper weapons. Adversries only cooperate in the most casual manner, with no long-term alliances or society of their own.

Despite the Voice saying "fair and balanced", the Adversaries tend to be strong, clever, and frequently with inhuman abilities. Adversaries with the forms of lions, tigers, bears, Frankenstein Monsters, Lugosi-style Draculas, medusas and minotaurs have all been noted.

When an Adversary kills it's target, it dies in minutes. If an Adversary is killed by it's target, it's dead forever; but if someone else kills another person's Adversary, the adversary will eventually come back to life.

Some people have conquered their Adversaries, making them servants. But the Adversaries have no more knowledge of the Voice or their origins than anyone else.

The Adversary comes into existence exactly 100 meters from it's target. No target was ever under ten years old. There is a 50% chance per year of a given person's Adversary materializing. For some it's a one-time conflict for their lives. For other's it's a cat-and-mouse hunt that lasts years. And everything in between.

The year is now 1963, and after ten years the human population is reduced from 2.6 billion to approximately 1 million.

Survival of civilization is dubious. Due to the monstrous number of children killed in the first appearance, after ten years all children are raised in fortified creches, baby-fortresses where the children learn the necessary skills of guerilla warfare. Every community has clear ground over a hundred meters in radius around it. Agriculture is all but impossible as so few would-be farmers are safe from attack. Factories no longer operate.

Humanity is in a state of war, but with no organized nation to fight against. The Voice said the War of the Adversaries would continue "until justice is served". And no one knows what that means.

The first parachronic explorers had 50% casualties. This world is off-limits.
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Old 02-27-2019, 10:55 PM   #336
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Flame-1

This world is apparently (as far as Infinity can determine) fairly closely similar to Homeline up until about 1973. Exactly what happened then (or even if that really was the start) is not clear to Homeline investigators, they only know that this is apparently about when it started.

'It' is Spontaneous Human Combustion...on a grand scale. Apparently beginning in March of 1973, people began spontaneously detonating into explosions of flame. It could happen to anyone, at any age, either gender, there was no visible pattern of race or background or behavior. Only actually pregnant females seemed to be immune, no instance was recorded of a pregnant woman 'flaming on'.

The blast was always substantial, generating temperatures of over 10,000 degrees F and blast wave effects reaching out for as much as fifty yards. The 'flamers' probably died painlessly, or so it was hoped, since the effect was almost instantaneous and had no warning. The people around 'flamers' were not necessarily so fortunate!

Worse, being near a flamer when he or she flamed tended to trigger the effect in others, and could start a chain reaction. Lone humans far from other humans rarely flamed on, but your odds rose fast as the number of people near you rose.

The effects accelerated over the course of 1973 and 1974, along with terror and panic. In March of '73, there were a few hundred cases world wide. In April, another few hundred. In May it rose to a few thousand. In June, hundreds of thousands, in July and August chain reactions became common enough that whole cities were destroyed. The effect grew ever more common, until the cities were destroyed or abandoned, and 'hellish' became all too apt a term for this world.

Only humans display the effect. No other organism was ever observed to 'flame on'.

Infinity discovers Flame-1 in local 2005. By then, civilization has more or less collapsed. There are survivors, but they tend to be loners or part of very small groups, often terrified/hating outsiders of any sort. The effect is still in operation, people still 'flame on', but as long as groups stay tiny the effect is rare.

Infinity discovered early on that outsiders could 'flame on' here as well. The first exploratory parties had their first instance of 'flaming' after being on-world for about a month. By present-day Homeline time, Infinity prefers to use drones and robots for exploration, though they do know about the 'pregnancy clause', and a very few female researchers have been sufficiently curious/reckless to use it to study on-site, though permitting this is controversial in the Infinity executive suites.

There is still NO known explanation for what happened here, it's a total mystery both to the few survivors and to Infinity and Centrum (who also know about this time line). The ruins of the cities still have some records that can be retrieved by determined explorers, amid the charred rubble. This has revealed much of what happened, but nothing at all about why.

No known case exists of visitors to this time line 'flaming on' after they depart, but both Infinity and Centrum are paranoid about the possibility, which also limits visitors.

Infinity has begun trying to resettle the few survivors they can contact and who are willing to listen to them on an empty world. They are quarantined there, but in NO case has any transplanted Flame native 'flamed on' in the colony, even when they gather in villages. Infinity is beginning to suspect that the effect is limited to Flame-1, but they aren't sure yet and don't want to take any chances.

Flame-1 looks the name. The ruins of the cities tend to be charred, broken, burned. Firestorms wiped out entire megalopoli at the height of the horror. Afterward, the collapse of large-scale agriculture has let forest and wild land recover rapidly, a world-jumper arriving far from former city-sites might even mistake himself for being in an empty world or a potential garden world. A jumper arriving in a city or other human ruin would have a different impression.
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Old 02-28-2019, 08:07 AM   #337
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Default Re: Lucy's Choice: Let's make Lucifer Parallels!

There would be so many forest fires even before people tried to escape to the wilderness.
Visiting jumpers would likely wonder about all the young groves recovering through massive burn sites.
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Old 02-28-2019, 09:31 AM   #338
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Given the possibility that this was caused by some kind of infectious agent, I’d have thought that Infinity would 100% quarantine it about five seconds after identifying the phenomenom.
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Old 02-28-2019, 10:25 PM   #339
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Given the possibility that this was caused by some kind of infectious agent, I’d have thought that Infinity would 100% quarantine it about five seconds after identifying the phenomenom.
There was a substantial school of thought calling for that among the researchers and Infinity execs, as I see it. They do, in fact, keep a fairly tight quarantine on it, only a tiny handful of people have access and they are carefully screened, and the transplanted survivors are 100% quarantined on their empty world. But a nervous counter-argument called for further (very cautious) study.

Remember, Infinity doesn't know that the trouble started in March of 1973. The records they've recovered, and the handful of survivors old enough to remember it that they've managed to contact, say it started then.

The trouble is that the records and recollections also indicate that the effect followed an exponential growth curve from March through late 1973, only finally slowing down because there weren't many people left. Some Infinity researchers nervously noted that such a curve might have started well before 1973, possibly a very long time before, and only reached the bend in the curve where it suddenly runs wild about that time. There were stories and crank theories about spontaneous human combustion on Flame-1 before March of 1973...and there are such stories on Homeline, too...

That nervous thought drives much of the willingness to risk studying it.
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Old 03-01-2019, 02:28 AM   #340
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Originally Posted by Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2 View Post
...
Survival of civilization is dubious.
...
Agriculture is all but impossible as so few would-be farmers are safe from attack.
Huh, survival is dubious for humanity, not for civilization. Without farming, what are they eating?
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